San Francisco

         I’m from Novato, which is in the state of California, within the county of Marin, which resides within the San Francisco Bay Area. Since most people usually don’t know (and usually don’t care) where Novato is I often simply say that I’m from “San Francisco-ish.” This never really posed a problem until I traveled across the country and learned a very valuable lesson: apparently EVERYONE from San Francisco is gay.

            I found this out while I was on a trip to Washington D.C. with a student group. Since all of us were in a new environment we introduced ourselves a lot and within a day introductions had been reduced to a science; name, state, city/town, and (if one was feeling frisky) relationship status. One of these exchanges was with one of my fellow scholars from Atlanta, who I refer to as JF (the initials of two Atlanta-born celebrities whom I dislike: Jane Fonda and Jeff Foxworthy).

“I’m from Atlanta,” JF said with just enough of a southern drawl that I made a mental note of the lack of racial diversity around him. “How about you?”

            I responded,“I’m from California.”

                      “That’s cool! Can you get me Tom Cruise’s autograph?”

                        “No.”

“‘Course not, he’s super busy.” JFpaused then, “What about Katy Holmes? She’s cool right?”

                        “I’m from San Francisco-ish,” I replied, “so…”

            “Oh so you’re gay!” JF declared, “I’m totally cool with your life choice, even though we don’t have any of you people in Georgia”

            “What???“I yelled in genuine shock.

I was completely taken aback; I thought I had dodged the ignorant bullet, only to find that I had been hit head on by a buckshot of stupid!  The shock was quickly replaced with rage and like all of my fellow men-of-many-words I shot off my volley of verbal evisceration:

            “Yeah, because all of us are gay!” I quipped sarcastically, “all the ?Gaydiation’ coming from the Golden Gate Bridge makes life so hard! Pun intended. And sometimes when I’m surfing to school I get held up at the Gay Marriage Crossing, which makes me late to my abortion clinic appointment! It’s so stressful that not even an American Flag burning ceremony makes me feel better; and let’s face it, a state sponsored ?medicinal’ marijuana joint just doesn’t burn as well as when it’s lit by the burning flag of ?the man’!”

            I was so adrenalized and out of breath that I was shaking, an eerie silence consumed our general vicinity.

            JF broke the silence, “If you’re all gay then why do you need an abortion clinic?” He asked in a completely sincere tone.

            “So that we can still kill babies.” Was my immediate response. “Wait, that’s the only problem that you had with that?”

            This exchange taught me an important lesson: you can’t fight stupidity with sarcasm.Fortunately for humanity this is a lesson I will choose to ignore. Ignorance is bliss after all.