What's In Good Taste Anyhow?

Something troubled me Sunday morning.

James took me for breakfast at Waffle House. Because of my crutches, we tried for a parking space that appeared to be coming available in front of the door. After several minutes we abandoned that idea because the occupant of that space was busily chatting on her cel phone.

As a short aside, may I ask in all seriousness what this fascination about yapping on cel phones? Everywhere I go I see people with these little plastic parasites stapled to their ears. I have a cel phone, but it is mainly for emergencies. Occasionally I have called from a traffic jam to say I am going to be late to work, or called "the mister" to ask him a question about something to buy when I am in a store. These calls have lasted at the most three minutes. What I tend to see, though, is people carrying on long animated conversations everywhere, including, sadly, driving down the interstate at 70 mph (isn't it bad enough they are tailgating at this speed without being distracted by talking on the phone?). Why? It seems to be epidemic.

In any case, we found a parking space almost as good and I began crutching my way to the door. A well-dressed woman entering the store jibed to me, "Honey, next time hit him with something that doesn't hurt you!" "The mister," coming up behind me, blinked. He has been unfailingly helpful since Friday despite his own bad knees.

When we got into Waffle House proper, one of the counter personnel made a similar joke, and upon exiting, the same well-dressed woman who had commented initially repeated the same hoary joke again.

I'm not touchy about things like Ralph Kramden's "to the moon, Alice," but all the remarks struck me in bad taste. Is it still funny to make jokes about spousal abuse?

And had "the mister"--or any man in that restaurant--made the same joke, would the women there have thought it was funny? I certainly didn't.

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 6:25:00 PM

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