About seven months ago I bought a hamster and named him Tinsel—a name I thought sounded like a Jewish accountant but that I now realize, after many confused conversations, is more closely associated with Christmas. Since I know Tinsel is going to die early—as all hamsters must—I’ve been acting like he’s a child in a hospital and I’m a visiting clown. I try to make things fun and exciting for him every day, feeding him as many delicious treats as his tiny body will allow.

The other day I went on a mission to buy more crunchy treats for Tinsel when I witnessed an interaction I haven’t been able to get out of my mind. For some reason I was especially disgusted to see it happen in a pet store. There were parakeets watching, for God’s sake!

The problem began with a white woman who was buying approximately 500 pounds of cat food. I guessed she was a shelter worker or animal rescuer, and I felt warm inside, knowing she was caring for so many whiskered, meowing faces. I thought it was cute she was also buying toys for them. I pictured her being greeted by their upturned hungry faces, and I got so into my fantasy, tears came to my eyes.

But when she went to check out, she arrived at the cashier at roughly the same time as a black guy who was buying one little bag of goldfish. Clearly, his transaction would’ve taken about 30 seconds. The fish swimming in the bag seemed happy enough, but there was more urgency to his purchase. But she went first.

That rubbed me the wrong way. I’m one of those people who goes out of their way to let other people go first. If someone has fewer items than I do, I bow awkwardly—in the manner of the 18th century—and suggest they go ahead. I just think it’s good form. The people in line with me thought so too—which is why they were shocked by the cat rescuer’s behavior. Without regard to the rest of us, she plopped her cans on the belt and the cashier began ringing her up.

This lack of decorum didn’t sit well with Goldfish Man.

“What the fuck are you buying there?” he asked her, rudely.

Uh-oh.

Because I fear conflict, I would’ve responded (probably with a bow): “I know. Can you believe this? I have, like, a bazillion cats I have to feed and I’m in a rush. I’m sorry to be such a crazy cat lady.”

And chances are he would’ve laughed.

But instead of laughing it off or—better yet—ignoring him, Cat Lady became enraged, and insisted on staying enraged for the duration. Goldfish Man was standing perfectly still, yet she took a preposterous wide-legged stance, thrust out her hand and said, “Back off!” It looked like she was demonstrating something she learned in an assertiveness class in the early ’70s.

He never raised his voice, which just made her angrier. Her face was red and she was shaking.

There was tension in the air because we all knew what was coming. And it did: She said something like, “You should learn how to speak.” She also informed him she lived in a black neighborhood, as if to suggest she was great friends with black people normally but he was too uppity. It was his fault, not hers.

When she left, we all burst out laughing. Goldfish Man seemed unfazed, as though he was immune to white people making asses of themselves. But is that really the kind of interaction that can just roll off you? Here he was, just being a garden-variety shmuck, and this woman made it all about his being black. If anything, it was more cat vs. fish than white vs. black.

Obviously, if he’d been white, she wouldn’t have reprimanded him for speaking poorly, and she certainly wouldn’t have said anything about her neighborhood. Scratch the surface of an enlightened white person, make her lose her temper, and the truth bubbles up. It was like a gentler, pet-oriented version of Michael Richards.

The reference to poor speaking habits reminded me of Joe Biden’s uncomfortable remarks about Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy. Biden told The New York Observer, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean.”

Articulate? Clean? Obama gave Biden a pass: “We have got more important things to worry about,” Obama told CNN. “We have got Iraq. We have got healthcare. We have got energy. This is low on the list.”

So the conversation petered out. Wouldn’t it have been more productive to have serious dialogue about those remarks? What if Obama had said, “What Joe Biden’s comments represent are important for us to talk about. What powerful white people think about race matters”?

I wonder if the woman in the pet store was embarrassed after she left the store. I wonder if she said to herself, “Oh my God, where did that come from? I can’t believe I said that.” Maybe she told her white friends about it, as a confession of sorts.

Or maybe not. Maybe she didn’t care.

It doesn’t really matter. For the man holding the bag of goldfish, the damage—however slight—was done. Again.