I just had to laugh when I burst the stereotype bubble for yet another typical straight dude whose assumptions were blown to smithereens again by interacting with me. Oh well… (giggle.)

Last Saturday,

I met a couple firefighter friends at a local building supplies retailer to load up trucks with supplies required for our Senior Safety Sunday event.

The building supplies store manager and another store employee met us at a loading dock. They helped us validate the inventory of supplies that we had ordered, then load the stuff in two pickup trucks belonging to my friends.

My friends and I were wearing jeans, FD-logoed t-shirts, and I wore firefighter boots (of course) while my buddies wore sneakers (ooops.)

As we were working with the store representatives, we invited them to come to the fire department the next evening to join us for pizza as a thank-you to everyone who helped out with the event. One of them said that he might come, but asked if it were okay to bring his wife. We said “sure.”

That guy couldn’t help but notice my ring on the third finger of my left hand, as I happened to be holding one side of a big box while he was holding the other, and my ring was prominently visible.

He asked me if I were bringing my wife to the pizza party.

My firefighter friends who know that I married a man knowingly winked, and waited to hear what I would say.

To be honest with my readers, I have gotten over having any concern about just being honest and straightforward about being married to a man. No veiled language, no hesitation, no substitution of gender-neutral words. I just said, “no, my husband isn’t one for large crowds, so he is staying home.”

The look of shock on both of the store employees faces was priceless. My firefighter friends began to giggle (under their breath.)

The store employee said, “you can’t be gay! You are married and wear boots!”

The rest of us just burst out laughing. I personally don’t like to laugh AT someone, but his response was so … silly … and unexpected, we found it to be quite funny. We were laughing at what we heard, not at the guy who said it.

There were many things that I could have said in response. I could have gone into a long “education” session or lectured him. But instead, I simply said, “my husband did a great job shining my boots, eh?”

Again, guffaws of laughter from my firefighter friends.

The store employees began to relax and I could see the wheels turning in their heads. We didn’t talk any more about “that” subject. The conversation morphed to checking the inventory again, getting a replacement fixture for one that was broken, and wrapping up the financial transaction to pay for all the stuff.

But once again … yes, men can be married to other men. And yes, same-sex married men are gay. And yes, some gay men wear boots. ‘nuf said.

Life is short: blow assumptions away by being who you are, and honest.

P.S., my firefighter buddies who were with me at the store told the rest of the squad, and for the next several days, everyone was laughing about it. They would see me and say, “who shined your boots today?” or “I’m married and I wear boots too!” and things like that. In context, this camaraderie was all in good fun and quite funny.