BoBo the Bigot Clown

Next Monday, I have the great honor of finally starting a permanent position in my new city. For the last four months, I've been doing contract work only and I finally feel like I am rooted here.

Having said this, I thought I would share a story of my most recent coworker (from a contract gig). In this story, she is known as Bobo. You may ask why, and it's easy--she is pasty and has short, cropped, permed red hair. Did I also mention the smile that rivals that of Ronald McDonald?

Ok, so now that you've gotten the image etched into your mind--oh wait! I didn't mention she is also of Scottish ancestry. Maybe even a love child of Ronald? The company's headquarters are based here....

Enough with the tangents....Bobo's biggest problem, sorry problems, were A)she talked too damn much (we had short cubicles that allowed her to make my ears bleed all day, every day) and B)about 80% of what came out of her mouth was either sheer bigotry, hatred, and/or generalizations.

A few gems I've remembered, or should I say don't want to remember:
"Any company that has Hispanics working there, ALWAYS provides Good Friday as a paid holiday."
"If it wasn't for those damned Arabs, our energy bills and gas wouldn't be so high."
Being of Scottish ancestry (read: VERY distantly), she felt it necessary to make crude comments about the Irish, amongst many other ethnic groups.

My problem on top of that is she looked at me like a confidante, only 40 years younger (she is the same age as my mom). She didn't see through the nodding, lack of eye contact, shiftiness towards my iPod to block out her bantering. Nothing. Since we only worked on contract for two months, the thought had crossed my mind to ask my boss if I could move to a different floor where I knew there were open desks but I knew it would be suspect. Or she might not have even noticed. Either way, I was always pining for the clock to hit 4:30--no big deal that I had 30 more minutes of work, I just wanted her to go home.

The Arab-energy comment obviously stung me, which is why I refused to tell her my specific ethnicity. She even counterattacked me because she had a hard time believing a Caucasian, brunette with brown eyes was strictly of English and French ancestry. Quite common in fact, had she never known what Audrey Hepburn looked like? And what was it to her? I changed my last name to protect myself from the hurtful words and actions of people like this in my hometown. The last thing I needed was to be interrupted during my work and being called a towelhead (I'm half-Arab), sand digger (once again, I'm half-Arab) or getting the stink eye because of news stories coming out of Iran, Israel, Afghanistan or any other nation with a Jewish or Muslim nation (I am neither of those religions).

This woman was baffling. She especially peaked my sociological interests of how she had survived in Chicago for 20 years, without being burned at the stake. Did she just wake up one morning and forget how diverse the city population is? I had to look past the fact that she somehow holds a master's degree and for some time lived in boystown. The fact that she grew up in "border town", Indiana spelled it out in black and white (and red, and yellow, brown....).

I guess what really gave me peace was that this woman hid her unhappiness. An eternal spinster (and former cat lady). She brought it on herself. If she's a bigot into her 60s then she's done it all her life, and who wants to be friends with that?