help me...

i have a problem.

i’ve become a political bigot.

i’ve become one of those people who doesn’t want to reach across the aisle for fear of accidently touching one of “them.”

this problem became painfully apparent to me in the last couple days, during which a very nice, capable young man was doing some work at our house. the kid was polite as could be, very conscientious, and excellent at his job. he offered to do a couple extra things, over and above what he was there to do because, he said, his company wanted to provide a high level of customer service.

ordinarily this kind of attitude would be enough to make me swoon with appreciation and to find any pretext to use the company again.

except that during the time he was there, in the course of casual conversation, it became obvious that this person’s political and social ideology were not consistent with mine. for example, i found that he had some pretty intransigent views about a woman’s role in the world. if i were to forced describe them, i’d say his views were, uh, “traditional.” this is what women do. this is what men do. strife in relationships results when these roles get confused.

hokay…

i never directly questioned or contradicted any of his casual remarks. did i watch the convention coverage last night? no, i did not. boy that was some speech so-and-so gave, did you read about it? no, i saw the headline today, but i didn’t have time to get into the article.

wrong convention. wrong party. not my interpretation of said speech, which i had read about and found annoying.

mind you, we didn’t ever engage in a big, long political discussion. under different circumstances i might have found a dialogue interesting, or revealing, or educational. but in this case i intentionally avoided the opportunity because (get this) i thought this otherwise upstanding young man might sabotage the work. or that he would stop volunteering the little peripheral details of the job.

nothing he did or said would lead a reasonable person to leap to this conclusion. i leapt of my own accord. it wasn’t a big jump, either. it was more like a short step off the curb. into the path of an oncoming bus.

that bus, i think, might be personal integrity…which makes me intellectual roadkill.

i’m a political bigot. and that’s a problem.