When you know "politically correct" has overtaken your life
December 23, 2003
So I get a message from a friend who is stopping by the bar.
She's Iranian by birth, but has been in the US since our old ally The Shah of Iran fell and she and her family scampered to safer shores.
It is my habit to have a witty reply to a message beyond, "sure, see you there." It sounds better, it sounds more personable and its what I like to do.
So she e-mails me to let me know that she'd like to come by the bar and see me.
So I reply back with, "Oh please, without haste, stop by using any means necessary."
But that's a bit too broad.
So then I added,
"But don't hijack a vehicle or anything."
But then I paused. Considering all the terrorist threats (real or imagined) these days and thinking that she might be sensitive to all of this, I decided I should delete that.
Still, I did not want her to use any means necessary to get here. So I thought I would add, "I mean, don't take hostages, just get here safely."
Then I thought, wow, how insensitive. I just thought about the Iranian Hostages thing and wow, if you think someone who is Arab is sensitive to the terrorist crap, the hostages crap has to be the bane of the existence of someone who is Iranian. If the hijacking thing doesn't sit well with her, the hostages thing is really going to make her squeamish.
So then the next thought was, "don't kill anybody" and then I knew my brain was conspiring against me. I couldn't back peddle fast enough. The whole reason to send this message was to encourage someone who wants to see me to come by and see me and now my response to her message is being held up because I can't think of a witty thing to say that may not offend? If she likes me, chances are she already knows I'm kind of offensive already.
So I just reminded her not to take any hostages if she has to hijack a vehicle.
