"So let me get this straight," the interviewer said as she leaned her elbows onto her desk and tapped her forehead with the index finger of her left hand, "you're Black?"

The interviewee a well-dressed obvious minority nodded enthusiastically.

"You're a woman?" The interviewer asked as she continued to tap.

The obvious minority woman nodded again. This time with less enthusiasm.

"You're also gay?" The interview stopped the tapping and instead picked up the push pen she had taken from her bank that morning and rotated it across her fingers.

This time with an uncertain nod and puzzled expression the obvious well-dressed minority woman answered, "Yes."

"And you're a conservative Republican?" The interviewer asked in wonderment.

Hesitantly the interviewee answered, "Yeah."

An obvious expression of befuddlement was etched onto the interviewer's face. "How's your self-esteem going these days?" She asked with genuine concern.

"Fine," the dark skinned woman answered, "I'm very happy with myself. Are you okay, though? Is something wrong?"

Peanut narrowed her eyes and sat staring at the woman across from her for a full minute then decided to answer with, "I didn't know that people like you existed. I thought you were a made up character from a world of pure contradiction, the serious kind of contradiction that far exceeds today's standards. To me you were as real a concept to me as 'cooking from scratch'."

Slowly the woman leaned in closer to Peanut and whispered, "We do exist."

Peanut blinked a few times. "Well obviously," she hesitated for a moment then asked, "but are you sure that we're related?"

The other woman laughed and shook her head. "Yes we're related."

"First cousins you say?" Peanut asked with a raised brow.

The woman nodded. "First cousins."

"Raised in Massachusetts you say?" Peanut asked with her brow still raised.

With an amused smile the woman nodded yet again. "I was raised in Massachusetts."

Peanut leaned back in her chair and started scratching her head. "Brandi, I don't get it."

With a sympathetic smile Brandi responded, "Yeah I think I'm starting to get that."

"You're the Brandi that every summer I went to spend time with up until I was sixteen?" Peanut asked with a pitiful look. "The Brandi that told me that you wanted to rid the world of small minded people and introduced to me my first alternative lifestyle romance, and was my best friend forever who I related to the most in life, and who told me to not be afraid of my liberal mindset even though I did live in Texas?"

"I do recall saying those things."

"Well wha...what happened?"

Brandi crossed her arms across her chest. "Evie, just because I'm a conservative person doesn't necessarily mean I'm small minded. I believe in things differently than you do. That doesn't mean that I don't understand other people's point of views or don't recognize them. All it really means is that I've evaluated an issue and have taken a different stance on it than you probably would."

"But that doesn't make sense. You're very minorityistic."

"Believe it or not all Republicans are not racist bigots, and plus, I don't even think minorityistic is a word," Brandi responded slightly on the defensive. "You're letting your stereotypes cloud your working mind."

"No no no," Peanut responded quickly, "I'm letting my stereotypes rule my working mind while understanding that there are exceptions to every rule."

"Evie," Brandi said the name quite heavily, "not all Hispanics speak Spanish nor are all Spanish speaking individuals illegal immigrants. The same goes for all individuals who speak any other language besides English... notice I say English and not 'American'. Not all people from Texas own three acres of land, with a herd of cattle and some horses, and are Southern Baptists. Not all Black people know Ebonics. Not all Asians are good at math. Not all women who are for women's rights are lesbians. Not all gay men are flamboyant. All men are not pigs. All women athletes are not gay and all male athletes are not straight. Girls who are considered 'tomboys' are not all lesbians and all boys who prefer to bake instead of throw a ball are not all gay. Not all Americans are ignorant of the world outside the continental United States nor are they all ignorant in general or just concerned with their own financial gain. Not all people who are religious are conservative. Not all people who are really skinny have eating disorders. Not all marriage ends in divorce. Just because a woman dresses in tight revealing clothing doesn't mean she deserves to get raped and doesn't mean she's a whore. Not all people who know about technology are nerds. Not..."

"Whoa whoa whoa," Peanut interrupted as she waved her hands frantically in the air. "Slow down. Take a breath. Think of a happy place."

Brandi took a deep breath then slowly released it.

Peanut leaned forward and clasped her hands together. "Obviously you've been holding this uh... tirade in for a while. You feel better now that you've vented?"

Brandi took another deep breath and released it. "Actually I do. I guess I just became a little fed up with people who respond to me like I'm some kind of freak show."

"Well I'll make a note to be less surprised by your mere existence in the future. Consider yourself having successfully broadened my horizon," Peanut said with a smile.

Brandi shrugged. "That's all I ask, because not all people who are conservative are small-minded and not all liberals are open-minded."

Peanut nodded. "Well okay. I think we've really made a lot of progress," she was going to say more, but was interrupted by the knock on her front door. "That'll be Polly," she said cheerfully and walked over to the door and opened it up.

Polly jumped into Peanut's arms, giving her a big hug then looked past her friend to the woman standing tall in front of the Peanut the small desk that held Peanut's decrepit laptop and feeble printer. "You look exactly like her," Polly said surprised. "I didn't think anyone in Peanut's family looked like her." She pushed past her friend and walked right up to Brandi's face. "Her sister is kind of close to her... they have the same parent's and all, but you two could be twins. You've got the same abnormally small head, petite body, muscular build, eye color, hair texture, this is wickedly cool."

Brandi looked at Polly uncertainly but managed to give a weak smile. Peanut considered her cousin's features then having made the decision that they shared quite a few physical traits nodded to herself in agreement with Polly's assessment. Then, she cleared her throat and got Polly's attention. "We are physically similar but, my friend; I would like you to meet my Black, female, gay, republican cousin Brandi."

Polly looked from Peanut to Brandi then back again with a clearly confused expression. "Huh?"

Brandi rolled her eyes and groaned.

"And she's got a speech," Peanut said with a bright smile.

"I think with those descriptives, she'd need one." Polly responded. Still confused, she turned to Brandi. "So...you're Black?"

The End