stevenpiziks (
stevenpiziks) wrote2023-08-18 10:49 am
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Entry tags:
The Cruise: Maggie
I have to back up a little. On the first day of the cruise, Darwin and I were wandering around one of the swimming pools on the top deck when a plump, blonde woman in her 70s engaged us in conversation. Her name was Maggie. She was friendly, overly so, and talked and talked and talked. She said she was born in Ireland but traveled all over the world and was a US citizen and her husband in Ohio was this and that and the other. I was trying to figure out how to extricate ourselves when she abruptly asked if were a couple. Darwin said we were married.
"Oh, that's so nice!" she gushed. "I have a nephew who's that way, and I love him just as much as I love anyone in my family."
This put both of us off. The subtext to statements like this is that the default setting for LGBTQ people is that we're wrong or bad, "But I love you anyway." (Don't ever say something like this when you meet a member of the LGBTQ community.)
Before either of us could respond, though, she whipped out a business card. "I want to share this web site with you," she said. "You'll get all the answers you need there." The web site in question was for a conservative Christian group.
At this point, I just said, "Well, we have to go now. It was interesting meeting you." And I walked away with Darwin in tow.
Fast forward to the Temple of Apollo tour. Maggie was on the bus, sitting just ahead of us. She had trapped her seat mate into one of her interminable conversations that were mostly about herself. I felt sorry for the woman, but not sorry enough to pull Maggie off her!
When we got off the bus, Maggie stopped at the driver out in front of the bus. She handed him one of the cards and talked at him, too. "Go to this web site. Once you read it, you'll become so knowledgeable and wise."
I couldn't let this pass. I caught Maggie up and said quietly to her, "You know, this is Turkey. It's a Muslim nation. You were proselytizing to a Muslim. I don't think this country takes that kind of thing well."
At this, Maggie exploded. She started yelling, actual yelling. "I don't know who you think you are! I can say what I want. I have free speech and—"
"No, you don't," I interrupted. "This is Turkey. There's no First Amendment here."
"I =know= this country," she screeched. "I was =born= in this country. I—"
"You said you were born in Ireland," I shot back.
"Well! You don't have the right to tell me anything. You don't—"
"I thought you said we had free speech here."
At this point, I turned my back and walked away, leaving her yelling at the empty air. I turned my attention to the tour at this point and ignored Maggie. She trapped yet more people in conversation and raised her voice whenever I wandered within earshot. "I'm a nice person, unlike SOME PEOPLE who think they know everything!"
Darwin and I rolled our eyes and continued examining the temple. (The irony of a supposedly Christian woman visiting a major Pagan shrine apparently eluded this woman.) I did take a photo of Maggie when she wasn't looking, in case I needed it. This turned out to be a good idea.
Meanwhile, Maggie wasn't done. When we all got back on the bus, she plunked down in her seat across the aisle and ahead of Darwin and me and set about passive-aggressively snarking at me with more, "Unlike SOME PEOPLE" comments.
One of these comments she delivered over her shoulder to me, which was what I was waiting for.
"Don't talk to me ever again," I snapped. "No one wants to hear from you. Keep your religion to yourself."
"Well, you—"
"DON'T TALK TO ME!" I boomed in my most powerful teacher voice. The entire bus vibrated from it.
One of the other tourists leaned toward Maggie. "Now, children, do I have to send both of you to separate corners?" Her words fit either of us, but she directed them straight at Maggie.
"Thank you," I said.
And at that moment, a hand slid into view from behind my and Darwin's seat. The woman behind us was giving me a thumbs-up gesture. I turned and thanked her, too.
Maggie was revving up for more, but just then the tour guide came on the sound system and she closed her mouth. She was actually quiet for the trip back, though she went right back to her passive-aggressive commentary when we got off the bus and boarded the ship. I let her get far enough ahead of me that I didn't have to hear her anymore, then ambled down to the ship's customer service desk.
"I'm afraid I have a complaint," I said to the rep at the counter.
"How can I help?" she said.
I told her what had happened, adding, "I felt wildly uncomfortable when she started proselytizing at me and my husband. I'm also worried that she might get into trouble if she does this on shore again."
I gave her Maggie's first name, though I didn't have her last name. "She said she's from Ohio. I'm afraid that's all I know. Here's her picture."
I spun my phone around so she could see it. The rep's face clouded. "I know who she is," she said, and typed rapidly at her computer. "I definitely know her."
At this moment, a man I'd met at the pride meeting, who was also at the counter, turned and said, "Are you talking about Maggie? She gave me a card, too! I didn't know what to say."
I jumped on this. "If she's done it to me and to you and to the bus driver, she's definitely doing it to other people."
The rep said she would file a report, check with the bus driver to see how he was feeling, and would "handle it from here."
In my mind, one of the ship's officers would stop by Maggie's cabin and tell her if she handed out one more card, she be keelhauled. In actuality, I have no idea what, if anything, the cruise personnel did to her.
I'm glad I confronted her. Apparently so were a bunch of other people. I don't countenance bullies. So many times people let bullies get away with their crap because they're afraid of making a scene. But the bully makes use of that fear to get away with their crap. We can't let them. Make a scene.