A man and a woman were walking through downtown D.C. It was a cold and drizzly day, but after a pleasant, long-time-no-see lunch together they were both in excellent moods. As the two walked beneath an awning, a woman holding a clipboard accosted them. “Excuse me!” she called out, “Can you spare a minute to help protect –?” and she named a controversial cause.
One of the friends gave a radiant smile and out of her mouth came a response that shocked even her.
“Abso-flipping-lutely not!” she sang out as they passed. She did not use the euphemism “flipping.”
The face of the woman with the clipboard went tight, and she looked away.
“My goodness,” said the man, regarding his friend with surprise.
“I did not mean to say that,” she replied, and laughed a little incredulously.
“I’ve never heard you swear before.”
“Well, I usually don’t,” she said, and stopped walking.
Should she go back and apologize? She didn’t like the woman’s cause, but it was hardly fair to have thrown an expletive — however cheerfully — at her. Moreover, she herself was a proponent of civility, and bristled when she heard other people cursing in public. Yet in that one moment she had not only blurted out offensive language, but had shown herself a hypocrite — all in front of an old friend whose good opinion she valued.
And what of the woman with the clipboard? There she was, getting rained on while gathering signatures for her cause. Having a pedestrian speak rudely (if sunnily) probably did not rank very high on her list of worst experiences, but it cannot have been pleasant.
There is so often this sort of tension, especially in a city like Washington where causes are profuse and opinions are strong. It’s probably hard to gather signatures, not because people are unwilling to give them, necessarily, but because of the profound awkwardness of, well, bugging them as they go about their business.
And being canvassed, well, that’s awkward too: It forces a person who may wish not to engage to take a position, even if his position is only, “No thanks” or “Not now.”
Little wonder, then, that many people’s default is simply to walk past pretending not to have noticed or seen the canvasser with the hopeful face and the proffered pen. Everyone in the situation knows the true and briefly uncomfortable state of affairs — I am addressing you, and you are ignoring me — and with the exception of the occasional Tourette’s outburst from a passer-by, it’s just one of the many fictions necessary to maintain a harmonious society.
In the end, the woman decided not to revisit the incident by turning back and apologizing to the canvasser for the disliked cause. But, as she told me later, she swore (inwardly this time) that she wouldn’t let such a thing happen again.
“I was like that princess in the old story,” she told her lunch date, “who opens her mouth to speak and instead of words, frogs and toads pour out.”
“Oh, never mind,” the man had smiled, “It wasn’t that bad. It would have been different if you’d been hostile or aggressive. At least you’ve given her a good story to tell at dinner.”
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
