Them Damn Mexicans

I think I'm honestly becoming afraid of some people...

I was at the Fort Wright Wal-Mart yesterday looking to buy some produce (and as a side note, let me say that the produce at that Wal-Mart was unbelievably nasty. I already would NEVER consider buying meat from a Wal-Mart. Now I guess I'll have to add produce to that. Anyway...). I needed some jalapeno peppers for a homemade salsa I wanted to make. There weren't any jalapeno peppers, but I found a package of small, mixed orange and yellow peppers, and I started to pick them up when a man I didn't know grabbed my hand and said, "Don't buy those!"

"Why not?" I asked. Considering the state of the rest of the produce in the store, I thought maybe he knew they were bad or something.

"Because," he said as he poked a finger in my face, "it says right there on them, 'Product of Mexico.' Don't buy nothin' from them damn Mexicans--sneaking into our country and stealing our jobs!"

I looked at the man blankly for a few seconds, waiting for him to crack a smile and say that he was kidding. But the smile never came. Instead, his eyes got wider, as if he were waiting for me. So I blinked a couple of times, and then I said, "Uh, you know, these peppers are a PRODUCT of Mexico. That means that they were grown IN Mexico by Mexicans who did NOT sneak into this country. I'm helping them keep their jobs in MEXICO by buying these peppers."

"I don't care about none of that," the man said to me as he shook his head and turned away, probably assuming I was a lost cause. "I won't buy nothin' from them damn Mexicans."

And we let people like that vote in America!