Jerkface McJerksalot

Up in Conifer yesterday, I was made aware of a well-known truth.

But I need to back up a bit to tell this story properly.

One of my managers up there is an extremely nice woman. Nice, nice, nice. Her husband comes in to sit at the bar sometimes. He is not so nice. He's a motorcycle guy -- used to work on them, now just rides one, when he's not in his new SUV -- and is one of those depressingly negative people who never has anything good to say. (Except about his wife -- he really does love her. That's about his only redeeming quality, however.)

He wears a lot of leather and he has a silver skull ring on just about every finger. No, I am not making this up. He also tells misogynistic jokes at the bar and seems to try and find ways to be offensive just for fun.

I try not to be one of those feminists who yells, "That's not funny!" at every stupid joke. I never, ever respond to this guy's prodding, a) because he's not important enough for me to really give two shits, and b) because that would only make him happy. But just so you get the idea, I'm going to record here one of the jokes he's told that I actually remember, which I did not respond to when he told it:

Q: Why do doctors spank babies when they're born?
A: To knock the dicks off the dumb ones.

Hahahahahahahaha.

Point being, the guy is an asshole. A self-affirmed asshole. He likes it. But I always was under the impression that beneath the asshole lay a misunderstood man with a heart of gold.

So yesterday, one of the bar regulars (but not necessarily MY regular) asked me if I had a boyfriend. I responded, no, I have a husband.

"You're not married," Asshole tells me. (He is also one of those people who doesn't ask questions, he makes statements and waits for you to contradict him. You know the type, I'm sure.)

"Yes, I am."

"Since when?"

"Since August."

"Let's see the ring." I show him the ring.

He responds with a scathing, dismissive: "That's not a real ring."

Honestly, this just made me laugh inside. First of all, because for all of this guy's authority-shunning, macho man, I-do-things-my-way-and-to-hell-with-everyone-else, he clearly still buys into the whole diamond ring business. Which is ridiculous. Second of all, because he wears so many rings -- I was half-tempted to say, "Well, I guess you'd know, wouldn't you?" But that probably would have gone over his head.

Or I could have said, "Gee, I could have sworn it was circular and fit on my finger in the way a ring usually does. My bad!"

Or I could have said, "Yeah, it really sucks that instead of buying me a diamond, instead I got a 3.5-karat ring with the rarest gem IN THE WORLD. Which will likely appreciate in value, whereas if you tried to pawn your diamond, you'd be lucky to get one-tenth of what you paid for it."

I could have said all these things. Instead, I just chalked one up to me being too likely to see the good in people.

He's not an asshole with a heart of gold. He's just an asshole.

The upside is, he also thinks he's the quickest wit in town. The other day he told D he needed to buy a new hat because his current hat is "gay/faggy." Some combination of those words. I'm ruining this by forgetting the comeback D hit him with, which was funny.

So it'll be interesting to see future visits from this dude, because he's bound to heckle my man, and D has no reservations about heckling him right back.