"You look like you're from San Francisco!"
I promised the blog that I wouldn't get arrested by George Allen's goons, and I made good on that promise. In fact, I only had one brush with Republican wrath the whole time I was in Virginia.
Towards the end of election night, a middle-aged Allen supporter in an orange baseball cap started yelling at me. I don't think he had any idea who I was. He just needed someone small to pick on.
"You look like you're from San Francisco!" he screamed.
Initially, this seemed totally random. Why was this drunk guy yelling about San Francisco? Was it a Nancy Pelosi reference?
"Well," I said, "I'm not, but my mom's whole family is from there. It's very nice. Have you been?"
All of a sudden he got a lot angrier. I looked at him quizzically.
He pointed a skinny finger at me and hollered, "And I bet you look like your mom!"
"Yeah," I said, "A lot."
I suddenly realized that he was trying to gay-bait me for having short hair. Or maybe it was the two huge cameras. What a weirdo. Some of these social conservatives really do imagine that Teh Gays lurk everywhere, waiting to pounce. Or maybe he thinks that accusations of gayness are so awful they can magically subordinate anyone.
In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have laughed in his face, he was very agitated and close enough to slap me. But that turned out to be exactly the right way to handle him. He just stood there with his orange baseball cap drooping and his mouth slightly agape.
