Louisville Sluggers and Old Lace

Last Thursday, I went to Inkwood Books (Tampa's best independent bookstore) to talk about my book. A RELEVANT ASIDE: The management at Inkwood is to be commended for their support of local independent authors. It's great to not only walk into a real live bookstore and see something you wrote on the shelves but their SelfPub Club gives writers like me a forum to promote ourselves. I couldn't be more appreciative.
Anywho, I was on the way there and stopped at a nearby Wendy's for a quick bite and to get my talking points organized in my head. I wanted to talk about how I write observations on things that happen around me and how I try to find the inherent absurdity that exists in the ugly, dumb, mean, cruel, arbitrarily disheartening crap we all have to deal with.
Now, we all profile other people. We may not do it with malice and hatred in our hearts but we all have our prejudices. Whether it's subconsciously or otherwise, these prejudices influence our comfort levels around other people. This was how I came to sit near the two sweet little old (white) ladies in the picture. Not that I was necessarily afraid of the two black guys sitting together or the three rowdy teenagers with multiple parts of their heads pierced; I just felt more comfortable sitting near the ladies that looked like my mom. Until I overheard their table conversation, and I swear to God this is true...

"You know you can't kill someone with a single blow from a softball bat."
"Of course you can. If it was an aluminum bat."
"I'm assuming it would be an aluminum bat. But I'm thinking the first blow would only crack his skull, maybe send him into convulsions."
"You're probably right. That's why it always takes 16 or 17 times, to finish them off."

I finished my baked potato and got the hell out of there. I probably should have thanked them for giving me a perfect illustration of what I planned to talk about but I didn't want to interrupt.