However, Not ALL Barbarians are as Unfriendly

Our proud city has always promoted the whole “Texas Friendly” thing. Austinist was alarmed upon first moving here, many-many moon ago, when strangers would greet us on the street. “Hey, how’s it going?” They would ask, as they passed us on the drag. We would immediately check for our wallet, and then belt out our standard response of “what the fuck did you just say to me? I’ll cut you, fucker! I’ll cut you with your own goddamn teeth!”

We have no idea what we really meant by that, being a pacifist and all, but luckily the vile reactions to kindness soon dwindled as we joined the ranks of laid-back Austin slackers. But sometimes, being a friendly slacker can backfire on you. In fact, some of the more militant “Texas Friendly” promoters will blow that shit all in your face if you don’t act super-friendly, super-fast.

Just weeks after our ultra-gradual gradumination from UT, we were returning to campus for an interview in the Liberal Arts Career Center. After parking our car in the pay lot across from the Communications Building on Dean Keaton (we called it 26th back then) and Guadalupe, we wandered up to the booth to pay the ever-eager Parking Troll.

We were decked out in our finest (read: only) wedding/funeral/interview/Halloween suit, and a borrowed leather satchel (to look especially bookwormy). Standing in line, sweating profusely, and worrying that we would be late for our interview with Enterprise Rent-a-Car (oooooh, are there really Management Positions available at retail sites in Weslaco? Sweet! …Dicks), someone started tugging on our jacket lapel. We turned around to see an attractive, early twenties blond girl with her hair in a pony tail and a t-shirt displaying her sorority’s Greco-brand, fumbling with our clothing. “You have it all twisted up here honey. No one’s going to give you a job looking like that.” She smiled, and set her travel mug of coffee on to the hood of a nearby car, so that she would have two hands to fix our mess. THAT is Texas Friendly.

So we stand there, prone, while she preps our appearance, when we notice her mug has started a negative descent down the hood of that car. We make a half-assed effort to move in and save it, but we are too late. It hits a parking block and rolls underneath the car. Damn. We really did want to return the favor by AT LEAST catching the mug. I mean, she was going to have to forge through her day with a filthy mug, just because she hated to see us looking so homeless. We returned her favor by watching her caffeine juice blast all over the ground. We let her down. We felt bad.

But the Parking Troll wanted to make SURE we felt bad. Apparently, he was the local fucking Friendly Police, and dude took serious issue with our breach in the listed protocol. When we turned around to face him, collar freshly fixed, cash in hand, he addressed us with strict, West African-accented consternation. “Why you deed not grab eet, uh?” His name badge read “Charles”, and he was a wiry little fellow, topping out around five-five. His mesh-back hat, bugged-out eyes, and outstretched arms were motionless during the delivery of our chastisement.

“I, I, I was just…” We were frozen by the confrontation. Too frozen to shut him down by explaining that she was fixing our collar, damnit, we simply could not break away to save the stupid mug. What exactly were we supposed to do? Knock her out of the way so we could save her wake-up juice? Is that reasonable?

But we knew we had somehow violated the Texas Friendly Way by watching it hit the ground. We should have dove for it, with or without reason, risking our suit and potential employment, for this is the Texas Friendly Way. It simply did not occur to us in enough time, and so there we were, getting chewed out by a Gollum-looking parking lot attendant.

The Troll, smelling blood in the water, continued his attack on our person.

“You juss watch eet fall to dee groun? Juss lik dat, uh? You an animal. A barbarian.” He got real excited about describing us as a barbarian. So much so, that he started to try and gain acceptance of this discovery from those in line behind us. “He EES a BARBARIAN! Right?!! Did you see heem juss watch dat mug fall?” He actually pointed at the nice girl, just after she successfully retrieved her mug from under the car. “You see heem juss stand dere! Like a barbarian while she go geet eet herself?” He was starting to grin, to really enjoy himself, then pointing at us accusingly, “BARBARIAN!” We could hear those in line behind us muttering to themselves, “yeah, we got it, he’s a barbarian,” or “I didn’t see your dumbass reaching for it either,” and “whatever dude, I’m late, get the barbarian the fuck out of here.”

Our collar fixer was kind about it, “it was an accident, you’re prooooobably not a barbarian, and good luck with your interview or whatever it is you’re going to.” She smiled, we smiled back. We thanked her for helping out our appearance, tossed the money at the Troll, and started to make our way toward our long-late interview.

Walking down Guadalupe, we could still hear him, like the echo of a gut-wounding gunshot, “he’s a BARBARIAN!” It sounded like he was jumping up and down, chanting it. “YOU A BARBARIAN!!!” He kept at it, the Friendly Police, sounding the alarm of a (apparently barbaric) Texas Friendly violation, until we were out of hearing range.

Enterprise Rent-a-Car passed on hiring us to manage one of their “Retail Strongholds” down in the Valley. Some might say that they probably found some less demanding, more easily manipulated high-school graduate to do the job. But we firmly believe it has something to do with their well-known practice of discriminating against suited Barbarians (with worthless Liberal Arts Degrees). If we can gather enough support, we’re thinking… class action lawsuit. Any other Austin Barbarians out there? Let a brutha know.

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