DYSPEPSI for breakfast?

I was invited to speak to a political group at a breakfast meeting this morning in my hometown.  The issue was about affordable housing, a subject that affects me directly as a senior and my daughter, who's disabled.  My sweetheart is still paying off student loans, bless him, so he's in the market for affordable anything.  My presence was to put a face on the topic, people who qualify for and need affordable housing look like me, talk like me, have families like mine.  And so forth.  You get the picture.

I had imagined I'd be preaching to the choir, but if I was, they must have been deaf.  The attacks were pointed and swift and I was glad I had a belly full of bacon and eggs to prevent me from getting sick to my stomach.  We were told, in effect, by a couple of well-heeled looking ladies (ok, I didn't actually see their shoes) that local citizenry were opposed to development of affordable housing because of the numbers of poor people who will live there and bring crime to the neighborhood, thus bringing down property values and disturbing everyone's quality of life.   The disabled, seniors and young working families who all qualify for affordable housing were, thankfully, not present to hear themselves portrayed thusly, by fearful and ill-informed but otherwise intelligent people.

I'm not going to argue the issue further today, except to note that one of the women was sloshing down diet Pepsi for breakfast, and repeatedly allowed her cell phone to ring.  Those are enough for me to qualify her as an idiot.  And I'm grateful that the chairperson of the meeting had a firm grip on the proceedings, snipped at the offending cell phone perp, told the other one that our purpose today was NOT to debate the density of units to be developed, but to put a human face on the issue.  She gave me a little pat on the elbow, for which she gets many brownie points in my corner of heaven, while the other will be relegated in her afterlife to a special place reserved by dentists and dieticians for people who supped on too many sodas.  That's only if there's any justice in the afterlife.