Jim

Prejudices are what fools use for reason.--Voltaire I have made an accidental friend at Starbucks. I have a history of this and it always turns out badly. One of the draw backs of being a friendly guy is that sometimes the socially-challenged mistake cordiality for friendship. My new accidental friend is a 71-year-old guy named Jim. I am not sure how this happened, but now when I go to Starbucks on the way to work, Jim is there waiting for me. Jim lives in an apartment complex a mile or so from here. The rent is cheap and the population is diverse. Jim laments that he "lives in a ghetto". Jim recently moved here from a big city, back East. (Hottervillians refer to anything east of Denver as back East). Like many big city residents, Jim lived his life in a neighborhood that reflected his ethnic origin. He tends to identify people by their ethnic background and mourns the loss of the old neighborhoods, where everyone knew their place. What is disturbing to me is Jim has a lot of prejudices and the more time he spends talking to me, the more comfortable he becomes in revealing them. Nothing as overt as dropping the N-word into conversation, but lots of innuendo and stereotypes. I don't want to hear it. He also seems to have a history of conflict, based upon the stories he has told. Jim asked me to pick him up at the hospital on Monday, because he is having an outpatient surgery. He has no one to pick him up and they won't let him take a cab. I told him that I would do it, but I am sure I will regret it. The last thing I need is another goofball for a "friend". Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky