I was “asked to leave” a restaurant that will remain unnamed.

I’m not even angry that they asked me to leave because I know it was asked out of respect for the many children running around.

I did, after all, call a man an asshole in my grown-up outside voice.

I know!

And I would apologize to every parent of every child in that place for having said it so loud that heads snapped around hard enough to give whiplash to all.

However, I would sooner douse myself in gasoline and set myself on fire before ever apologizing to the man to whom it was directed.

He’s pretty darn lucky he didn’t go home with a swallowing problem after I punched him in the throat.

I had taken the kids to get food before we went for a swim, and was unlucky enough to sit myself at a booth with a venomous piece of filth at my back.

He wasn’t shy about voicing his opinions on a black president and how our tax dollars are being spent.  I’m not entirely sure that one has anything to do with the other, but whatever.

He was all for just dropping an atomic weapon on all of “them arab countries and that’d take care of the war problem.”

And don’t you try to take away his gun.

I was able to shake it all off with an inner snicker that ignorance really DOES comes in a wonderful variety of shapes and colors….and how my husband was totally correct that stereotypes are often steeped in some truth.

And then he said it.

He said something so ugly that I sat stunned for a moment wondering if there was any way I could have possibly heard him correctly.

“…and wasting all my government money on those stupid classes for retards is useless…they might as well be giving the money TO.TERRORISTS.”

Did he…?

No. He couldn’t have.

Because there is no way he just compared people with special needs to terrorists.

He did not just say he’d rather fund terrorists than fund classes to help the mentally or physically handicapped.

But, any way I worded it in my head, it still came out the same.

My inner snicker fell silent.

My mind flashed through thoughts of my own child, my beautiful cousin with William’s Syndrome and  ALL of my friends who in one form or another have the label of special needs in their lives.

My laughter was replaced with a fury so hot my chest hurt and I got those angry tears….those ones you can’t control and you hate because you’re pretty sure they make you look like a complete wuss.

I turned in my seat and said, “Do you even hear yourself? What you’re saying is so awful that you should be ashamed of yourself!”

The man took one look at me and said, “You need to shut up, you stupid foreigner.”

I snapped.

I could hear it.

Something in the back of my head said “OH HELL NO” and I just totally lost any grasp I had on my Handle-It-Like-An-Adult mechanism.

I stood up.  I leaned over and yelled in his face.

“Even a stupid foreigner like me can tell you’re a completely uneducated asshole!”

Yup.

Right there. In his face.

I sure did.

I’m not proud of it because I hate when people get all curse-y out loud in front of MY kids and make their eyes get all big and they say “oooooh, they said S-H-I-T.”

And that’s when one of the employees came over and said, “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

So, I gathered up my kids who were too busy playing to notice that their mama was about to unleash some kung fu on a total douchebag, and we left.

I don’t even feel bad about it.

Except…..

A whole group of parents had to go home and try to explain what an asshole is to their children.

I could have saved them some time by having them all file past that man like an exhibit at the zoo…”Look kids! It’s an asshole. Don’t feed it, though, they bite.”