Yeah, I Called You a Racist. Tough!

"You're a racist!" she half-shouted at me last Thursday at Gecko's, er, Iguana's. Her portly friend, a real bowling ball, chirped in too, saying, "Oh, she called you out."

Bollocks. Uh-uh. Not a BombPop's chance in hell.

(She of the potty mouth and forked tongue—a friend's girlfriend whom I've wasted less than five minutes of conversational breath on in total since summer 2007—was an acquaintance at best. Look, I'm perversely happy that she slandered me. I instantly thought, "Well, here's a blog.")

I didn't deserve this putdown. I hadn't said anything racially insensitive. Other times? Sure. I'm as imperfect as broken glass. But I was on my best behavior. Not a peep of offensive material. Though I was in ultra-critical mode as always, she hadn't heard any of it. In point of fact: I'd hardly spoken a word to her. That's what was so queer about it. Her attack was entirely unprovoked. She said her group was going to Main Street and urged me to join them. I declined. Then with a devious grin, she tossed the racist frag at me. That is a label whose appropriateness I will dispute until I'm royal blue in the face.

Yeah, I could've berated her—and maybe cracked that "listening to you is worse than listening to Arianna Huffington"—but my all-important torpor was too great.

In a futile attempt to backtrack, she said something like, "I know my boyfriend's friends, and they're all racists."

I didn't know how to reply then. I don't know how to reply now. I still have lockjaw.

Look, you don't even know me, Geraldine Ferraro!