This Really Happened

So my best friend Jaymie and I had just left a club and were gingerly teetering in our high-heeled boots through the snow and ice that had accumulated on the sidewalk since we went in several hours before.

Spying a slick layer of almost-invisible ice on the parking lot blacktop, I grabbed Jaymie's arm to steady her and said, "Watch out, there's some black ice right there."

Two guys walking toward us suddenly stopped, looked at each other and then at us, and said, "Jesus, ladies -- please!" Then they called us names and went into the club.

We sat in the car and tried to figure out what we did wrong. We were just walking to our car in the freezing cold, not talking to each other, much less anyone else. Besides, neither of us would say or do something rude to complete strangers.

It didn't dawn on us until much later that the guys probably thought I said, "Watch out, there's some black guys right there."

Yeah, I am an inadvertent asshole. Jaymie and I were discussing that episode after passing by that club yesterday. We both still feel like crap about it four years later, in case you're wondering.