A Jerk By Any Other Name

No matter the color or culture, women the world over have a few things in common... at least when it comes to dealing with those jerks who make themselves easy to spot.

Waiting in line to board a Douala-bound flight at Malabo Airport, one guy (obviously superior to such silly things as queues) ducked under the nylon ropes around everyone else and pushed his way through the exit at the front of the line. The woman currently exiting, a tired woman with a baby on her back and two heavy bags, was no match for him. I was right behind her, but powerless to do anything except stare at his receding back and snarl at it, "Asshole."

I was highly gratified when his bag caught in the door a moment later, preventing him from taking advantage of his line-jump as several passengers (I among them, I assure you) streamed around him struggling with his suitcase. Yesss karma.. normally I help others in such a situation, but not this time. No one else did, either.

We did, however, help the young mother carry her bags across the tarmac to the plane. She seemed exhausted, and I was glad when the ticket-checkers at the bottom of the boarding stairs motioned for her to come up to the front of the line - "You there, with the baby, you can board right away."

Suddenly there was an overfamiliar hand on my shoulder - that same dude had somehow caught back up to us - and he joked pompously and wittily to the clerks, "People with babies to the front of the line? Well here's my baby, can I come up too?"

I was *speechless* with disgust, but the female ticket-clerk wasn't, and neither David nor I needed to any Spanish to understand exactly what she meant by her one-word response: "Kulo!"

May I note with satisfaction, Señor Kulo still boarded behind me.

And thank you, Chris, for pointing out the irony in me telling everyone in my last post to wait until mañana... could be Malabo is rubbing off on me, but of course mañana always takes a few days to get here...