Goin'postal

Remember a while back I did one of those test game thingies and it said I was a hunter....well...heads rolled again.

This time I was at the local sports center after youngest's basketball practice. The kids are heading into the locker room, which now has this fancy card entry system, brand spanking new. The kids have had cards for about 4 days. Maybe.

Anywhoo...there's a pack of kids all trying to get through but the machine isn't working, so the man who works there at the gate, doing I am not sure what, goes over and starts RANTING at them. They all looked kind of stunned, and he told them to go and take a seat on a bench nearby. I didn't understand all that went on as he was facing away from me and it is echo-y, so I asked youngest what was up. She said she wasn't sure but he told them all to go and sit down. Rudely. Very rudely. I had heard.

Now the girls are all hot and sweaty and it is darned chilly there and we are getting on for supper time. The girls had not done one thing wrong and this was simply ridiculous. I got Youngest's pass and went to talk to the man when the coach arrived. He was none to charming to her, but better.

There was no change room for the girls (for the second time) thought there was one for the boys (again)....I mentioned to the coach that he had been quite rude and she went to talk to him (again). Then he let all the girls through. Seems he had actually been locking the gate on them (and they are supposed to just figure this out on their own??? They're kids and their coach told them to go in and shower..)

So the coach and the girls go through, not to shower, they never got that honour, but at least to put the balls away and the guy starts ranting on to some other guy about how ridiculous it all is. You know the tone I mean, that not so faintly mysogonist one that goes,"What a stupid woman what is she doing here anyway? I am totally right and justified in everything I did in that utterly bizarre situation." I am positively livid by now.

Then, oh fatal error, then he turns to me for support, wanting me to nod my head and sympathies when he just yelled at MY kid for no reason, and was obnoxious to her coach and then slagged them all, coach and kids, behind their backs.

*sigh*

I let it rip. My Catalan is not very nuanced at this stage. I called him rude. There are two forms of 'to be' in Catalan, one is a temporary kind of thing, the other is a permanent element of your character. At least I used the temporary form. Then he got really polite to me, and I (heatedly) pointed out that he was being OH SO polite right now, but he hadn't been at all polite with the girls. Then he switched to Spanish.

I told him to switch back to Catalan (this is, shall we say a hot topic around here) and he flatly refused. NO.

English or Catalan

NO.

English or Catalan

NO.

So I _{kind of hit his desk} and left.

Never was afraid of a good scene.

One of the women in the foyer with us who knows me faintly from my work asked me as I left what had happened, and was upset what she had seen. I explained, as I was leaving, that I didn't like how the man had spoken to the girls, and that now, all of a sudden, he can't speak Catalan. (Grave and hot topic) At least I didn't tell him to speak Christian which is what all the Francoists told the Catalans to do when they were heard speaking their language in public. Things might have gotten out of hand if I had.

Canada is not perfect by a long long way. I am an Anglo-Canadian and I know the Quebecois have more than a few issues with what my part of Canadian culture has done, but let me tell you, if I went into a sports center in small town Quebec, and the doorknob on the entry gate was being obnoxious, I wouldn't have to switch to English to have the argument just cause he wanted to.