Incident while waiting for a car repair at the dealer.

[rurallib]

(xposted from the Lounge)

Yesterday I had to take my car in for a repair. It was a long one so I brought a book and settled in the waiting area.
In the waiting room there was a big screen TV that was on when I entered. Three other people were there, a middle-aged woman, a young black man and another younger fellow that appeared to be a farmer of some type. I am @60. Let me mention that this takes place in Iowa City, Iowa - the major outpost of liberalism in Iowa if not the country.
The TV was playing the Today Show. The farmer was the only one watching. He would interject some comments that the rest of us ignored, totally. After a while the young black man left. Then the farmer left. With just me and the woman there I asked if she minded if I shut off the TV as she was reading also. She said fine so I shut it off. The TV was off for about an hour.
I was getting restless reading. I noticed that the remote for the TV was a DISH remote (I had shut it off manually). I asked the lady if she minded that I turn it back on. Since it was a DISH I was curious if they carried FreeSpeechTV in the dealership or if they had it blocked. The lady said she had just gotten DISH and she wanted to know how to run the remote.
So I turned it on and flipped to 9415 and voila! FSTV. The lady asked me about some of the channels and I showed her UCalTV and Link. She was very happy I showed her these stations.
We settled on a lecture by Michael Polan on Link about the food supply.
We were quietly watching when the farmer came back in. After a couple minutes he speaks out loudly "You know this guy has never been on a farm. Where does he get off trying to tell us how to farm?" We ignored him, so he repeated what he said louder and spoke in my direction. I Looked at him and said "There's about 50 stations on here telling people how to get to heaven. Not a one of them guys have been to heaven. You believe what they say don't you?"
He was irritated. A couple minutes later he started spouting something about "the stimulus and Obama bankrupting our kids and grandkids." We ignored him. So he repeated it louder.
I turned to him and said in a very stern voice "Look, I am going to do you a favor. I will not respond to your bait. I will do you a favor and not embarrass you."
He started to scream, but I shut him down. "Please" I said, "act civilized."
He was turning red. "What the hell am I supposed to do? Sit here and watch this crap?" he asked. "No" I said, "you have options." "What should I do, leave?" he said loudly.
Calmly I responded "That would be one of your options." With that he left, never to be seen again.

Bullies can't take it.

[Rambis]

1. Bravo rural! Happy belated-

:party:

[Hardrada]

2. We have a struggle at our Y. I come in to exercise in the late afternoon

and two of the TV monitors are always or all too often on Fox. They just hand me the remote now when I check in and I will not begin exercising until I have switched the Fox stations to MSNBC or PBS or TCM. I usually also scan the room before I do this. I have had only one objection from an older woman so I had Fox on a TV for her and MSNBC running right alongside to provide some cognitive dissonance. I also told her that Fox TV could actually make you gain weight and that is not what we want to do here. This is an ongoing struggle but is peaceable enough. The libertarians don't watch the TV's that much but mainly yak loudly in the weight room.

[Blue Gardener]

3. Good Job!

Maybe the farmer was up here from Washington county.

[IA_Seth]

4. Yay

So I really never log in to DU anymore.. life's busy, the place got a little toxic, and I just ran out of energy for internet forums.

However, I decided to check in and peek here and lo and behold this is what I see. Lol. What a good story. Knowing myself I would have probably been a little bit more aggitated, but you handled him perfectly.

Good job man!

[rurallib]

5. Seth! how te hell you been? We've missed you!

How's the little one? Is all going well? Still in CR?

[IA_Seth]

7. Good.

Good! I am doing pretty good. Life is crazy, but what can you do. Just keep movin.

The little tyke is a sassy 2 1/2 and is doing wonderful, she is learning things at such a crazy pace she really keeps me on my toes. I am in Marion now, right next to CR, but I like it a lot here. Close to family, small-town feel.. just have to keep working on their politics.

I hope all is well with all of you as well, and if you are on facebook, look me up!

[Condem]

6. Which dealer, rural?

Just curious. Been in the car business for 13 years, now. Currently in CR. At a repub owned outfit. I'm an anomoly there.

[rurallib]

9. McEleny in IC. Just a customer who thought he was mr. macho, I guess.

[TheCML]

8. I wonder

If that farmer gets a subsidy check?

[rurallib]

10. Wish I had thought to ask him.