Her remark was a personal attack and she made a Direct Hit:

"You are such a Goodie-Twoshoes."

"I am not."

"Ohhh Gawd. You are the most Goodie-Twoshoe person I have ever known. I typically don't hang out with them."

"What are you saying?"

"I don't really feel that I can be myself when I'm with you. I always have to watch what I say. You're so straight all of the time. It's really hard to be with you."

Ka-pow. Just like that, a friend that I've been spending time with for close to a year tells me what's really going on in her head.

Her comment blurted out after I chided her for calling a Hispanic man a sp*c. He wasn't standing too far away from us and he was with his family. I told her that I didn't agree with her and that I wasn't comfortable with her glaring accusation of him in front of his family, in front of me and in front of another woman who just happened to be standing nearby. My friend grunted in disgust and then started to tell me how she felt about African Americans. So rude, so off base.

And because I told her that she was wrong to say those words outloud and wrong to view people that way...I suddenly became the world's Ultimate Goodie-Twoshoes who squelches her ability to have fun and just.be.herself.

"To hell with that," I replied.

This gal was born and raised in a very small, Midwestern town. There was no diversity, no compassion, no tolerance. Just Elitism running amuck...making everyone there feel that they were better than the rest. And it's still dwelling in her belly, that unaccepting, narrow-minded opinion of others. I'd already known about her penchant to hang out with the country club girls, i.e. the Affluents. But I wasn't aware of the degree of intolerance that runs through her veins. And it isn't just about race. It's directed toward Christians, housewives and people who have a lot of children. I'm sure it's been directed at me a few times because I am not...polished...in an affluent kind of way. Anyone who lives differently than she does is not welcome in her world.

Why do I keep running into these types of people all of the time? They think they are better than everyone else...and yet it's their judgmental attitudes that make them considerably less enviable than other people. And at the end of the day, no amount of money is going to buy class. You've either got it or you don't.

And how interesting of her to turn the attack onto me. She honestly thought that I would sit there and gleefully disparage the people surrounding us.

Sorry. Not my thing.