perhaps

I rolled off the bus soaked with salt water and took a taxi directly to the beer garden. It goes without saying that the taxi driver needed to say racist things to me; for the last few months it seems that any stranger that gets me alone wants to say racist things to me and at this point I'm just keeping score. Stranger taking the tile down in the bathroom? Yes by all means I want you to tell me how integration ruined the state of education in the US and how it's ruining Czech culture too, because gypsies. Thai woman giving me a massage? Please share with me your hatred of all the Vietnamese people here, that is a perfectly logical thing for one foreigner to say to another. Dear new eye doctor, I so very much enjoyed your summary of our fair city as being nice until you get out of downtown, at which point you are surrounded by gypsies, which is not only a very strange thing to hear while someone is looking deep into your potential cataracts, but also just objectively false. Miss Manners recommends just telling people you are from whatever group is being stigmatized, and sometimes I do that (" Perhaps you didn't realize that I am an immigrant" is plausible; "Perhaps you didn't realize that I am Roma" is less so, although still fun). Handyman fixing the taps, I was happy to hear about your job in Italy and your hatred of immigrants here, and I sure was relieved to hear that you didn't mean an immigrant LIKE ME, that makes it so much better. Taxi driver, I am not crazy about militant Muslims either, being not a fan of any religion that takes itself seriously, but why was that the topic for the cab ride, when I led with the weather and we were only together for five minutes? I'm not trying to say that the same exact thing keeps happening to me again and again, the same offense, because I am sure that each one of these people is an individual with their own agenda and feelings and intentions, and their own reasons why they want to say those things to me, but from where I'm sitting, it sure feels the same. Perhaps you didn't realize.