Harassment in America's Safest City Demands new HR Protocols for Local Restaurants -- Part One

Please be advised that this article contains explicit language and may not suitable for all.

The Mistake.

It all started with a napkin. See, my new husband had somehow lost his napkin. Being the chivalrous, gentleman I am, I immediately gave him mine, a little used, but whatever. I looked around for a busser, server, anyone would could help me with this extremely mundane request, but to no avail. Having glanced various times at the table next to ours, it appeared that these two women in their late 40s/early 50s were seated alone and very much enjoying each other’s company. So, I leaned over and grabbed the napkin carefully and cautiously out of the neatly packed sushi arrangement.

The Escalation.

With the napkin still in hand, one of the ladies said something to the effect of, “Oh, so you just steal other people’s napkins from their tables? That is so rude.”

Of course, I was mortified and embarrassed, so I apologized and advised that I didn’t know they were waiting for additional people. The ladies continued with their rants, “What does that effin’ matter? You just don’t steal someone else’s napkins…”

Literally and naturally, I went to put the napkin back to where it had been previously, when mortified and offended, they both said, “No way do we want that effin’ napkin after you dirty hands were on it!”

The darker haired one and obvious aggressor of the couple stared me straight in the eye with complete disgust and repulsiveness in her tone, “I mean, what type of person are you that steals other people’s napkins?”

At this point, I was really hoping that she was joking, but she glared and remained transfixed with the fact that I truly kept silent. I was speechless and had no idea of how best to respond to that, so as not to escalate the situation any further. I shrugged and turned back to my husband with an awkward smile.

Within the next two minutes, I had found a waiter and advised them that we needed some napkins ourselves and would he be so kind as to replenish the napkin that I had stolen from the table next to ours. I thought it was over. But it wasn’t.

The Harassment.

My heart was still pounding when, my husband, who I had tried to convince that I was okay, (even though the ladies were still ranting and raving about how nasty of a person I was to steal a napkin), defending my honor of sorts, politely and respectfully rose from the table and leaned over theirs. He advised them that it was just a napkin and that I had already apologized and they may have been blowing this out of proportion a bit. Let’s be honest, there was probably a bit of a facetious tone, but I don’t know because he said it in a lower voice so as to avoid the entire sushi place overhearing our conversation or their obvious disgust for the situation at hand.

Bad idea. Very bad idea. The lady with darker hair immediately, said “Get the “f” out of my face! How dare you, you effin’ faggot, you queen! Don’t you dare get all up in my face! Who the effin’ do you think you are? You effin’ queen.” I may be paraphrasing, but you get the gist.

My husband looked like he was about to kick some butt, mighty sexy I might add, but I continued to calm him down and advised vehemently that he ignore them.

Well, it didn’t stop there either. They then proceeded to yell across the restaurant that they were not going to sit next to these effin’ faggots and that we were about to have an altercation if they stayed where they were sitting. It was loud and everyone was staring.

They both got up from the table, angrily and loud enough to make a scene and said something to the effect of “we are not goin’ sit next to those effin’ queens, those effin’ faggots. They are disgusting.” (Again, you get the gist!)

I can only imagine their language and their behavior when telling the host/reception that they had to move across the restaurant to get away from those terrible gays.

For just a moment, I took in a huge sigh of relief that perhaps they would leave.

Alas, I had completely lost my appetite and that Black Cod skewer looked soooo delicious.

Not two minutes later, the lady with darker hair walked past our table muttering, “I hope you faggots choke on your food.” Much to my surprise, she waltzed around the restaurant only to come back two minutes later saying much the same thing, a little louder now so that everyone could hear. Looking back, I now understand there was another reason why she was doing this.

“Every Man Must Decide Whether He Will Walk In The Light of Creative Altruism Or In The Darkness Of Destructive Selfishness."

--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The Continued Harassment.

The hosts, without hesitation, sat them down at a table in a complete unobstructed view from our table and particularly directly into my eye-sight. I could see them continually pointing and shaking their heads.

All of a sudden, I then feel a dark presence to my immediate right. This middle-aged guy begins, “You effin’ faggots better leave our wives alone. You effin’ pooftahs. I’m so glad we don’t have people like you effin’ faggots in our lives.” Now, I had just learned a few weeks prior in London what exactly a “pooftah” was and was actually impressed by his usage of the very derogatory British slang, but then thought better of the timing.

Even after all of this, I, like a dork, tried to apologize to him by saying I thought the women were sitting alone and that I had no idea…, but he just muttered some other terrible slur and walked away.

We were stunned. Now, it became clear to us why the lady with darker hair had walked past our table twice…to ensure that her husband knew to which table he would direct his anger, harassment, and threats.

Meanwhile at our Table.

To be honest, we hadn’t said much. Once the husband left our table, we finally started to discuss what had just occurred. We spoke about how terrible they must feel inside and how much pain they must be holding onto in their lives. As intuitives and spiritual mediums, our emotional intelligence and compassion is infinite and even extends to poor and sad individuals such as these. There was so much to say. This was our first time experiencing gay bashing in years and years and unfortunately his first time in the United States.

Neither of us are newbies to being chastised and picked on for being different. We discussed our years and years of gay bashing throughout our lives, mostly during our school years and some after. We recollected about our strength and resilience in those moments. As newlyweds, we hadn’t yet discussed our terrible harassing days, months, and years by various students, even teachers in some cases.

We bonded in an incredible way, with our hearts trembling in fear, our bodies paralyzed in disbelief, and our hands red from wanting to physically defend, if need be. Even our toes were angry with years of harassment, our hands shaking with embarrassment and disgust, and our eyes watery from choking back the intense amount of emotions.

The Hostile Environment.

Embarrassed. Harassed. To say that we were scared would be an understatement. It’s not that I didn’t think I could handle myself if anything physically escalated. Let’s be very clear about this, however, as it was truly not an option, but, self-defense might just have been necessary if my life were threatened or the life of my new husband. We were in shock, so surprised that something like this could happen in Southern California, in the 21st century, in one of America’s safest cities, Carlsbad, where my new husband and I were actually considering, earlier that day, as a potential option of a town for starting a family. He reached out to take my hand and I pulled back for the first time ever. I then realized how silly that was…and reached back out for his.

“There Is No Deficit In Human Resources; The Deficit Is In Human Will.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Staff.

As our hands were now safely in each other’s comfortable grip, finally… our server, Chris, came over to us. You have probably been asking yourself, where is the staff? Yes. So did we.

Not one of the staff members had approached our table since the “altercation” had occurred. Not one.

Chris asked if everything was okay. I didn’t even know where to begin, so I asked to speak with the General Manager immediately. To our astonishment, he advised that the GM doesn’t work on the weekends (hmmm, what?) and that he was doubling as the Floor Manager that evening. After three seconds of complete dumbfoundedness, we relayed a good part of the story to Chris. His first reaction was to apologize for the behavior of the other table. The second reaction was to stand there and do nothing.

After realizing he was clearly not trained for anything like this (during the day, I am an HR Professional/Consultant), I told him that we had completely lost our appetite and wanted to leave the restaurant as soon as possible, so if he could pack up our things as quickly as possible that would be great. Let me be clear about something here. I needed some fresh air. I needed to get out of that restaurant. My heart was still pounding, the tears were still welling up in my eyes, and I needed to extricate myself from that establishment as quickly as possible, so I could feel safe again. It was about my safety and my husband’s safety.

Nothing happened. Five minutes later. I once again asked Chris to pack up our items and that we wanted to leave as soon as possible. Ten minutes later, same thing. Chris, please I need to get out of here.

“We Must In Strength and Humility Meet Hate With Love.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Reflection.

While it took Chris and the staff about fifteen, yes, 15 minutes, to pack up our items and put down the check (in my amazement), we had been deeply reflecting on three questions, really. One, how could we have handled the situation differently? Of course, we chuckled when I stated I will never ever again steal a napkin from any table as long as I live. The second question, what is going on in their lives that would cause them to erupt like that and harass/gay bash us over a silly napkin? We don’t need to go in the details on these two questions, but please know we are compassionate human beings that truly care about the human race. We heavily pondered if this type of behavior is now kosher in a Trump-era society (given his consistent insults and derogatory comments to anyone and everyone). Not a dis, just a fact.

The last question and the most important question of the three: what would have happened if our children had witnessed this “altercation?” What would he have told them? What would we have said about the other individuals involved? What lessons are they teaching their children? What lessons do we want to teach our children?

Name calling is just silly. Physical aggression is never the answer. How can we ALWAYS take the higher road? How can we ALWAYS be the bigger and better person? These questions still haunt me several days later.

While I don’t know for sure what the other 4-top of individuals were discussing, I can guarantee you it wasn’t the aforementioned three questions. What is the world coming to?

The Discount. (lol)

Finally, after waiting what felt like forever, he dropped the check, apologizing once again for their behavior, citing that he’s from San Francisco and he cannot believe people like that still exist in the world. He lastly apologized for the discount and said it was the best he could do. I’ll be honest, I had thought about what the restaurant was going to do for us.

At this point, I had calmed down enough that my heart wasn’t pounding anymore. However, when I saw the 15% discount, I was disgusted. I laughed in horror and disbelief. For a moment, I considered just walking out and leaving the bill on the table…and were I a different human, I probably would have. I paid the bill as I knew at that point I would definitely be refunded once I spoke to the General Manager.

And then, I hit a low point. I then told my beautiful, handsome and incredible new husband that I didn’t want to hold his hand as we walked out of the restaurant. (How terrible now that I think about it.) Because in that moment, they won. Hatred had won over love. Never again.

As we left the establishment, I inquired at the host/reception as to the name of the General Manager and advised them I would be contacting him the very next day (Sunday). They looked at me like I was crazy.

As soon as the door closed to the restaurant, perhaps one second prior, I very deliberately grabbed my husband’s hand with a gentle and loving smile.

The Aftermath of Fear.

Even as we left the establishment, still shaking, I kept feeling that one of the husbands (of the ladies) was going to follow us out to the car or hurt us in some way. At one point earlier, I had seen one of the husbands step outside for a few minutes and then return. My first thought was he had slashed our tires after having cleverly found my car in the parking lot. My second thought was…that’s giving him a lot of credit and he probably went to smoke. Nonetheless, you can bet your bottom dollar I was watching that table like a hawk, just in case we had to move/escape quickly.

Needless to say, that night was long and sleepless. We both tried to speak about other topics, but always seemingly found our way back to the hate crime/harassment that had just taken place.

The next morning, over breakfast, we still felt the aftermath. I felt cautious to hold his hand and conscious of all the people in Carlsbad that looked and/or “stared” at us. It was a horrible and terrible feeling which has tapered over the past few days, but still haunts me now.

“Our Lives Begin to End The Day We Become Silent About Things That Matter.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

The Witnesses.

Another good point to bring up here…were there other people around? Oh yes! There were at least 50-75 people within about 25-30 feet of our table and not one of them said anything to us.

If I had witnessed this situation, you bet I would have either intervened, insisted that the restaurant kick out that table of harassers, or at the very least, when all the commotion had died down, have approached the two guys (clearly defeated and embarrassed) asking if they were okay. Moreover, I would have commiserated, listened, and told them those “guys” are terrible and horrible people.

Not one person intervened. Not one person got up from their seat to ensure that perhaps we were okay. Not one of them came over to help.

Not one person.

TO BE CONTINUED...

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