Is This Offensive?

I was at a computer super store yesterday making some routine purchases. By that I mean I wasn't buying a computer nor was I getting anything remotely super, either. All I needed were some printer cartridges. The store was packed. People were pushing ahead of other people, sales clerks were ignoring customers, door buster items were out of stock, everyone was being rude.

I eventually made my selection and rejoined the stream of humanity, like so much flotsam and jetsam, being tossed and shoved until I was spewed out upon the distant shores of the checkout lines. So far so good.

There were loud talking mommies making public demonstrations of their parenting skills. There were mother-daughter tag teams who alternated between standing in line and running back for one more thing. There were imperious looking business people disdainfully running up their expense accounts. There were Playstation 3 and Wii geeks getting their tech fix and clueless fathers with armloads of video games that their kids have ignored all year long. And me.

When I finally got to the checkout, I placed my ink cartridges upon the counter and cheerfully announced, "Merry Christmas!"

It was like a bomb went off. The girl behind the counter, a middle eastern looking person wearing a burkha and one of those silky gown thingies, literally gasped and took a step backwards. The girl at the next checkout's eyes went wide and she quickly looked away shaking her head. The rest of the people in the lines around me stopped talking. From everybody's reaction, you'd of thought I farted during a moment of silence.

I looked around me and said, "You people should be ashamed of yourselves! This is Christmastime. It has a name. We are allowed to say it. Well over 70% of our population in this country is Christian. But we can't even publicly name the holiday for fear of offending someone? Christmas is the most sacred of Christian holidays. If you people don't like it then get the hell out of the stores and give the true believers some room to shop!"

They all stood silently for a moment, then finally, the middle eastern girl cleared he throat and spoke, "It's not that, sir." she said quietly. "You're wearing a Party Naked tee shirt with a picture of naked people having sex. You are a veddy, veddy bad man!"

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