Now look here, see?

I pulled up to a stopsign in Costa Mesa (Tustin & 17th) with my window open yesterday. It was near the end of the workday at the quick lube place, and the workers were kinda blowing off steam, yelling at each other good-naturedly. One guy looked about sixty and worn and sunburned in a kind of Okie way. He was looking into the office and suddenly he yelled out, in the most gravelly whisky-soaked Marlboro-burnt voice I’ve ever heard:

WILL YA GET OFF THE HORN FINALLY SAM? YOU’RE LIKE A GODDAMN BROAD!

I didn’t think anyone still alive spoke like that. Is he in 1936?

2 thoughts on “Now look here, see?

  1. Old people aren’t what they used to be
    Ya know, old people aren’t what they used to be. I mean, a 60-year-old is no longer
    someone who grew up in the Depression and lived the life of
    Catch-22 / Grifters / Williwaw.
    No, a 60-year-old now is someone who in 1960 was SEVENTEEN.
    They have no business using the word “broad”! Unless they read Catch-22 / Grifters / Williwaw.

    Like

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