One Unusual Story At IHOP
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So yesterday morning my wife and baby go to eat breakfast at IHOP before I have to start working for the day. We sit down at a booth and start to order drinks and our usual breakfasts. I do love IHOP pancakes and I always get the Sampler and split the scrambled eggs and hashbrowns with my little one.
A lone gentlement probably somewhere between 55 and 65 years of age sitting just behind us in a booth decides to engage us in conversation out of the blue. The man first inquires about the toy Woody doll that my baby carries around, he claims he has seen that doll somewhere but couldn’t place it. I informed him it was the Toy Story Woody Doll and that jogged his memory.
The man proceeded to say that the usually doesn’t talk to strangers but there is something about us that makes him feel old. He said he had six kids the oldest being thirty five and the youngest being eleven years old. He also apologizes for wasting our time and talking to us and said he would “shut up now”.
The odd fellow just kept engaging us in conversation throughout our entire meal however, at first it was polite and friendly questions. When he asked my wife how old she was, I was a little disturbed, point blank asking a woman her age is not proper etiquette and can be downright rude. I know he was doing it to illustrate that we were “babies” compared to him, but it was still rude.
When he found out that I was from New York the conversation turned weirder still. He asked if I was an Italiano, not Italian clearly defining the stereotype difference. I politely joked with him about it, and then he took a phone conversation with someone and once again I overheard him joking about if another family member was Italiano, then he told the person he was talking to on the phone that he met some nice people and one of them was a New Yorker, and also an Italiano.
I have been stereotyped before but was kind of odd, in the thirteen years I have been living in Arizona less and less people seemed to stereotype me as a New York Italian, but today was a throwback I guess. He might as well called me a mobster and a greasy WOP. Meanwhile my wife was shaking her head and kept giving me looks like “don’t encourage him”. I told her that if my skin was dark he would have asked “Are you part black?”
I joked with her and said that if I told him I was 1/2 Jewish do you think it would help or hurt my case? Seriously, whats up with the stereotyping. Not all Italians from New York are Mafia wannabe’s who just talk trash and are up to no good scams… wait, hmmm so many are no wonder why there is this stereotype.
That is my funny story folks, the funny thing is these types of things happen to us all the time, weird strangers just talking to us out of the blue. We had an old Native American woman in a shoe store, she was so ancient that her hands were like parched leather, she had a wise elder look about her. When our first baby was only a few months old she had walked over and touched the baby’s foot and said some words in a dialect I can’t understand. Smiling we can only assume she said some sort of shamanistic blessing to our baby, that is what we joke anyways.
-Justin Germino
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Tags: funny story, IHOP Story, Odd People, People without etiquette, Rude People, strangers, unusual story
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Man. I wish an ancient indian lady would have given *me* a shamanistic blessing as a baby =(
Funny how ballsy people can be for no reason whatsoever.
Me, I’d blend, in Arizona, because even though I’m 1/2 irish & 1/2 Mediterranean mutt….(adopted, not sure), I look spanish (I guess) to some. Don’t think anyone’s ever asked me if I were Italian. But I can’t even count how many people ask me if I’m spanish or mexican or whatever….(rolling eyes) You are much more the gentleman than my husband would have been. He’d have been in the guy’s face after a certain point
People can be so rude and ASSuming when it comes to nationalities….
SOme people u just have to take with about 50 grains of salt
Kudos to you for being so calm about it!!
for all you know it could have been a shamanistic curse. and if the guy is really old give him a bye. Old people are not politically correct. An old lady called my friend “colored” to her face, but both of us could see she meant absolutely no malice by it. It was something like, oh it’s nice to see colored girls and white girls being friends.
It seems whenever you have small children it’s an open invitations for older strangers to try to spark up a conversation. When my kids were babies and toddlers strangers were always pinching their cheeks and trying to chat me up.
The key if you don’t want to chit chat with strangers is to avoid eye contact and if they do try to talk to you, keep to one word answers, act disinterested. They’ll get the hint.
Tuesday night I took my daughter to her Anger Management Class (don’t ask). I had to sit in the waiting area for an hour and 45 minutes. I really wasn’t in the mood for conversation, being that I didn’t even want to be there. The chairs were extremely uncomfortable aggravating my bad back and causing spasms. I wasn’t a happy camper, and I wasn’t in the mood to engage in conversation with strangers. Especially strangers at that facility. The place only had magazines from 2005! But, I got myself a stack and parked myself for the long wait. A woman with a thick irish brogue came out of one of the doctor offices. I glanced at her and just from her body language I could tell she was itching to strike up a conversation. I kept to my ancient magazines, peering over them periodically. The woman ended up chatting up the receptionist until her grandson came out of his appointment.
I used to kid around with my Mother that she had one of those faces, friendly, open that everyone wanted to talk to her. We’d wait at bus stops and it never failed, if anyone was there waiting they chatted her up.
Unfortunately, I seem to have inherited that face. lol!
I’ve had that happen so many times also. Most times I love it. I was raised by grandmothers and aunts from “the old world” as the called it constantly. According to these lovely ladies, anyone ten years younger than them, was fair game and considered a youngster.
As for the Native American, being half Choctaw myself, that’s exactly what it was: a blessing. Truly an honor.