Maxwell’s Café — Issue #7
Fishing for conflict; the new hobby of current cultures kids.
Did you know that “Karen baiting” is a thing?
The other day I was parked outside of my friend’s house waiting for her to come to the car when I saw a group of about five teenage boys throwing rocks at a house.
One of the boys went to the side of the house to peer in the window, phone in hand, camera rolling, he hollered at someone inside. It’s clear his response is to whatever the person inside said as he starts to trample the flowerbeds he is standing in and pull the roses from the vines, throwing the blooms to the ground.
While the kid on the side pulls his shenanigans, the group in front are all hollering, “Fatty! C’mon Karen, bitch!” And that sort of tripe. They toss pebbles at the window and throw dirt from the plants they’ve dug up onto the porch of the house.
The boy on the side runs toward the front of the house where the other boys are, “She’s coming! She’s coming!” he yells to his friends.
They all get their cameras at the ready.
A woman comes out of the house. She’s wearing a bucket hat and shades, has her mask on, unlike the boys harassing her, and she is wearing a long sweater with a hood pulled up.
“You boys need to get up outa my yard please! I’m going to call the police if you don’t stop!”
The boys film her, trying to get a better response for their Karen video. She tells them to leave again as she side-steps the dirt, mud and dogshit they’ve tossed at her front door.
“I’m calling the police if you aren’t gone in 5 minutes.” She offers them another chance they don’t deserve.
They take their time about it, but finally leave.
The woman seemed used to it, like it isn’t the first time. She comes out to porch without the disguise and starts sweeping. She steps into the front yard to asses the damage and spots me in my car. “My name isn’t even Karen!” She laughs.
“Yeah, didn’t think so,” I say, “Do they come around a lot?”
“Ever since they caught me out here tripping over one of my own Halloween jack-o’-lanterns they’d kicked off my porch. I spilled coffee on myself and hollered at ’em. Their Karen video got 100’s of views.” She rolls her eyes but keeps smiling.
We talk awhile until my friend finally comes out. The woman basically says it’s not the boys that bother her so much as the fact that we live in a world ignorant enough to need “Karen’s” to point fingers at and create more divisiveness in a world that needs less of it.
She is right.
What do you watch on YouTube?
