Friendly Haters

This morning, I was busy pouring concrete to make a slab when a couple in their seventies, driving in a tiny car resembling a golf cart, stopped in front of the construction site. They waved, and I waved back; then I went back to mixing water with cement. I heard the woman yelling something over the sound of the mixer. I looked up. She was looking at me and, even though I wasn't wearing my glasses, I could tell her lips were moving. I turned off the mixer and walked a few feet closer to the road. I didn't want to get too close to them because I wasn't wearing a mask and neither were they. From a distance, I shouted, “Excuse me. I couldn't hear you. How can I help you?” She smiled and pointed at my work in progress, “The new cabin is coming along nicely.” I nodded, “The progress is slow, but I'll get there... eventually.”

Thinking about the concrete in the bucket that was getting harder by the second, I wanted to get back to work, but I didn't want to be rude, so I stood there and waited for them to leave. Only they didn't. The woman said, “We saw you working on it last summer. We're just visiting. We have a place down the road. We're wondering whether we should move here permanently and sell our other place in the city.” I smiled, “Well... it's quiet here, so that might be a good idea given the pandemic.” The woman seemed to like that, “Yeah, at our other place, we have a lot of minorities around us, you know, and they're all on welfare. These minorities bring us all kinds of diseases. It's terrible. And they don't wanna work because they get more money from welfare than they would make working. We don't even wanna go back to our other house. The good thing about here is there are no minorities.” By then, I'd heard enough, more than enough for a Monday morning, so I smiled, “Enjoy your day. I have to get back to work.” The woman started to say something else, but the man, who was in the driver's seat and had been quiet until that moment, interrupted her, “We were just being friendly.” Then they drove away.