"Ain't it amazin' how ever'body is all so smug about thinkin' we can read the other fella's thoughts by just lookin' at him? This confidence is even more amazin' when ya think how certain we all believe that we are real good at concealin' our own."
-Josh Billings

*****

As much as we'd all like to believe otherwise we judge people on appearances.

I know I do. It isn't really a conscious thing in most cases. It's just that we have learned to associate certain characteristics with certain types. It isn't constant of course. My oddball may be your mainstream type though the opposite is more likely true. It's all in the eye of the beholder.

What got me to thinking about this was when I walked into a computer store this week and one of the red-shirted young men approached me and asked if I needed any help. I said that I was looking for a new modem for my Macintosh. Without blinking he said "For one of the older Macs? Right back here." He then set off at a determined pace without waiting for any confirmation from me.

Truth is it WAS for an older Mac. But I didn't tell him that. I think I'd been profiled. I suppose when balding men with generous paunches come in for Macintosh parts we are immediately corralled into the back corner, where to my consternation I found exactly what I was looking for. I was pleased for the good service but there was something depressing about the basis on which it was rendered.

I read somewhere that Arnold Schwarzenegger is given to rash generalizations based on appearance from time to time. Legend has it that he approached a queenly-sized lady in a Hollywood theater lobby who was sporting a "GUESS" logo tee-shirt. Arnold was reported to have approached the lady,squinted at the word "guess" across her ample bosom and said "I'm not sure. Thyroid problem?"

Of course neither the lady nor I are the first to be profiled. A hundred and twenty years ago Ambrose Bierce was writing in his San Francisco column about a man the vigilantes had hung from a lamp post the night before. He said that after the hanging some members of the Lady's Auxilliary had come by to admonish the mob for hanging a man that had been found guilty of nothing. The leader of the vigilantes lifted his hood long enough to assure the ladies that while it was true that they had no actual proof that the man had committed the crime in question (stealing a safe from city hall) they did feel certain that they had hung someone who looked as though he might have been guilty which the crowd agreed was almost as important.

He went on to suggest that if the man were indeed guilty and wanted to get money from city hall he should have taken the more direct route of getting himself elected alderman, but I digress.

So no matter how high minded we would like to think we are, we all make judgments based upon appearance; yet another reason to regret my fool's cap pic above.