I think its time I jumped on the discrimination-for-bucks bandwagon

If your hair is red, stop reading this now! I mean it. You're not going to like what follows.

As of today, I'm making it official: this column will no longer bring joy and merriment to gingers. I feel kind of bad about doing this, but I'm determined to make enough money (without working very hard) to retire comfortably and discriminating against a large segment of the population seems the best way to accomplish this goal.

I'm basing this assumption on the recent Facebook-and-TV-news fueled accounts of that catering service and non-licensed auto garage where the owners very publicly stated they would not provide services to anyone that was gay. This made liberals very mad. So mad, in fact, that they made a lot of noise about it.

All this noise attracted the conservatives, who made even more noise. 

Amidst all this noise — in the case of the catering business, at least — a lot of money changed hands. Most of that money wound up in the caterer's bank account.

Now, I'm not a political person, mostly because I just don't care what other people do as long as they leave me alone. But I know a good scam when I see one.

My first thought was to deny gays access to this column. Problem is, I have too many gay friends and a couple of them can beat me up. (Don't believe everything you see on TV about all gays being frail little guys who like to buy antiques; some of 'em drive Harley's and could crush me like a Dixie cup if they took a mind to.)

For a while, I considered discriminating against practitioners of Wicca; you know, modern day witches. I don't believe in any of that hooey, but decided against it anyway, on the off chance I'm wrong. I mean, who wants to be turned into a frog, right?

The idea of discriminating against telemarketers appealed to me. Problem is, I can't see anyone, liberal or conservative, getting too worked up over that. Not worked up enough to send me money, and that's the goal here, remember?

I could discriminate against old people, but I'm too close to being one of them myself. Some would say that line has already been crossed, in fact.

Discriminating against various ethnic groups is generally frowned upon, except by real idiots and I don't want to join their ranks. Sure, it's a well documented fact I do not like the French, but they don't like me, either. And none of them read this column, so denying them access to it would have little effect.

So I settled on redheads. I'm not talking about you reddish-brown, auburn-haired folks, or even you strawberry blondes. I'm talking about the Bozo-orange, Ralph Malph from Happy Days gingers here.

Now, personally, I have nothing at all against gingers. Why would I? But in order to pull in the big discrimination dollars, I'm going to have to pretend I do, okay?

I have only one good friend with red, red hair and she lives in Alabama these days. I'm hoping she won't hear about this.

Look, I'm not proud of myself for doing this, but I'm not getting any younger and so far my long-term financial planning has relied heavily on a world-killing asteroid striking the Earth within the next five years.

At any rate, if you're a redhead, please do me a favor and get all aggravated about this. Call the TV stations! Post vitriolic comments about me on Facebook! Call me with death threats!

I, in turn, will do my part and make really stupid comments when the local TV news folks stop by for interviews. With any luck, the checks will start rolling in soon from people who really do have negative feelings about redheads.

If this works, I may stop servicing blondes as well.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 548-8273