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Back in my news paper reporter days the thing I hated covering the most was a ribbon cutting ceremony. Basically you have the store owner, mayor, some guy from the chamber of commerce, and a few others gathered around having brownies and punch while celebrating money. if you've seen one you've seen them all.
So on this fateful day I had not one, not two, but three frickin ribbon cuttings that day. The first two were beauty salons within 3 miles of each other. The owner's in both establishments were very friendly, took time out of the ribbon cutting to answer my questions and let me snap a picture and I got out of thier hair.
So then I had to go about 20 miles over to what I'll call Crazytown to cover the opening of a medical supply store. Now Crazytown is very small and the opening of a new store is big deal, so the Mayor is there with the police chief and fire chief along with the business owners. And here's where things start to go bad.
The mayor wants a picture of all five people, all of which are African-American, in front of the store. Under the store's awning. I dont' know if you've ever tried to take pictures of black people who are standing in front of a dark building while they're standing in a shadow, but it's not exactly easy. Neither me, or the two professionally trained photographers could get a decent picture.
Later, I'm trying to get a interview with the business owners but they're too busy hob knobbing with the wealthy and powerful of the poorest town in rural North Carolina. That's saying something. I get the basic information, names, what their business offers then I go home and write the piece.
So it ends up with the two beauty salons, the folks that took time to provide me with answers to my questions, taking up the bulk of the piece while there's about 2 paragraphs about the medical supply place.
So the next day I get the phone call.
ME= Me
DB= Drunken Bitch
ME:Thank you for calling [Newspaper] this is Danjo, How may I help you?
DB: Yooooou Son of a bitch!
ME: Pardon?
DB: How dare you disrepect me!?
ME: Uh...You're going to have to be more specific.
DB: You wasted all that space on F-ing beauty salons! But None on our medical store!
ME: Uh huh...(Flips to the article)
DB: You Racist son of a bitch!
ME: Ma'am I'm not racist, if you'll look at the other pictures in the article you'll notice that they're clearly black as well...
DB: I've already called your manager, you are so fired. *Cackles madly and hangs up*
So I head to my editor's office,
ME: I just got a weird phone call. (i describe it)
ED: Yeah she called me earlier, I told her about the trouble you had and if she wants better coverage she should be nicer to the press.
ME: Go with your bad self. So I'm not fired?
ED: Not today.
ME: Sooooo that I can really piss off store owners eh?
ED: You didn't piss off the store owner.
ME: Then who the hell was that?
ED: That was the mayor of [crazytown] she has a bit of a drinking problem.
And that is the long rambling story of how I pissed off a mayor. The proudest moment of my life.
So on this fateful day I had not one, not two, but three frickin ribbon cuttings that day. The first two were beauty salons within 3 miles of each other. The owner's in both establishments were very friendly, took time out of the ribbon cutting to answer my questions and let me snap a picture and I got out of thier hair.
So then I had to go about 20 miles over to what I'll call Crazytown to cover the opening of a medical supply store. Now Crazytown is very small and the opening of a new store is big deal, so the Mayor is there with the police chief and fire chief along with the business owners. And here's where things start to go bad.
The mayor wants a picture of all five people, all of which are African-American, in front of the store. Under the store's awning. I dont' know if you've ever tried to take pictures of black people who are standing in front of a dark building while they're standing in a shadow, but it's not exactly easy. Neither me, or the two professionally trained photographers could get a decent picture.
Later, I'm trying to get a interview with the business owners but they're too busy hob knobbing with the wealthy and powerful of the poorest town in rural North Carolina. That's saying something. I get the basic information, names, what their business offers then I go home and write the piece.
So it ends up with the two beauty salons, the folks that took time to provide me with answers to my questions, taking up the bulk of the piece while there's about 2 paragraphs about the medical supply place.
So the next day I get the phone call.
ME= Me
DB= Drunken Bitch
ME:Thank you for calling [Newspaper] this is Danjo, How may I help you?
DB: Yooooou Son of a bitch!
ME: Pardon?
DB: How dare you disrepect me!?
ME: Uh...You're going to have to be more specific.
DB: You wasted all that space on F-ing beauty salons! But None on our medical store!
ME: Uh huh...(Flips to the article)
DB: You Racist son of a bitch!
ME: Ma'am I'm not racist, if you'll look at the other pictures in the article you'll notice that they're clearly black as well...
DB: I've already called your manager, you are so fired. *Cackles madly and hangs up*
So I head to my editor's office,
ME: I just got a weird phone call. (i describe it)
ED: Yeah she called me earlier, I told her about the trouble you had and if she wants better coverage she should be nicer to the press.
ME: Go with your bad self. So I'm not fired?
ED: Not today.
ME: Sooooo that I can really piss off store owners eh?
ED: You didn't piss off the store owner.
ME: Then who the hell was that?
ED: That was the mayor of [crazytown] she has a bit of a drinking problem.
And that is the long rambling story of how I pissed off a mayor. The proudest moment of my life.
Eric the Grey
Oh man, that would be perfect! Think he would have: 
or 
after that comment?
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