To Wong Foo...

So according to the stats page, everyone who has stumbled across my blog lives in Russia.  Ohhhhkay.  How odd the world has become since the internet.  In the loosest sense of the term, I have an international audience but still no readers.

Anyways, today in my narrow little retail world, a transsexual came in to shop.  And y'know, she was very polite...nicely asking for product locations (using both "please" and "thank you"!), asking for product recommendations, wishing all the employees to have a great day when she left...all in all, a model customer.

And yet, the moment she was out of earshot, there were employees huddling together, whispering and giggling.   

Is it a shim?  A she-he?   

Did you see his hand when he reached out to the shelf?  His nails were PAINTED!

Gross.  Just gross.  I'm going to have nightmares.

Unnatural. How wrong can you get?

Now, way back when I was in junior high, there was a rumor flitting around the school that the gym teacher was a lesbian (we were too young to recognize a stereotype when we heard one).  More often than not, I would catch a ride home with my best friend and her mom.  When she repeated the rumor to her mother, from the woman's reaction, you'd think the gym teacher sacrificed kittens to a pagan god while smearing turkey blood all over her nude body while dancing around a maypole.  Big gasps and flailing hands and lots of sputtering about how "outrageous" and "unnatural" that was and on and on and on.

Later that night, curious to see how my own mother would react, I repeated the rumor to her.

The reaction I got was not what I expected.

My mother was outraged, yes.  But not at the possibility my gym teacher could be a homosexual.  She was more outraged that I participated in spreading a hurtful rumor.  My mother actually dragged a chair into the kitchen, made me sit on it, and then lectured me for ten minutes about what other people do with their personal lives is their own business.  If the gym teacher were gay, so what?  Did she act on it?  No.  Did she conduct herself inappropriately?  No.  Did her choice of life partner have any impact on my life and well being whatsoever?  No.  And so and and so forth.

Looking back, the whole incident seems very after-school-special to me and I'm sure my mother could've made her point a bit more tactfully than just blurting out, "don't be prejudiced".  But what's important is that she /did/ make her point.  She wanted me to learn that I should judge someone by their actual actions.  So the next day when the other girls giggled in the locker room about the gym teacher's very masculine wardrobe (polo and shorts!  A gym teacher!  Whodathunk!), I just shrugged when my turn to giggle came along.

Was my gym teacher a lesbian?  It was fifteen years ago and who cares?  She did her job and if at the end of the day she came home to the loving embrace of a female partner, what bearing did that have on my life?  She didn't corner us in the showers or try to convert us with the GAY AGENDA.  She just lived her life and I've lived mine.

And that's what's bothering me about today.  Yes, that customer was born male.  Six and a half feet tall, Adam's apple and deep voice.  But she was very polite.  She actually said, "Excuse me, Miss!"  That's very rare.  I've gotten all varieties of, "Hey, you!" or "Lady!  Lady!  Lady!" or the infamous dog whistle for my attention.  She wasn't pushy when told that the product she wanted wasn't stocked in our store.  She actually thanked me for my time and wished me and everyone else a good day.

And huddling in the aisle to whisper about her jean shorts and deep voice is how we acknowledge her respect?

I realize a lot of us are brought up to equate "different" with "bad".  I'm sure it's some left-over evolution thing that prevented our ancestors from being eaten by giant salamanders or something.  But calling someone gross and unnatural because he feels more comfortable as a she?  Slap the "disgusting" label on a pedophile, not on someone searching for the better can opener. 

Just...it shames me.

Like I did all those years ago in the locker room, when my turn came to make a jeering comment, I said nothing.  But...seven hours later, I am regretting that.  I'm not saying I should've formed a one-person Pride Parade right then and there, but would it have really killed me to at least said something along the lines of, "Knock it off?"

So...

Ma'am.  Thank you for your politeness this afternoon.  Customers like you are extremely rare.  I apologize for our subsequent behavior...both their sniggering and my silence.

Gotta start somewhere, I suppose.

Woof.

So I've been in tears for a majority of today.

See, I have a dog.  Yes, present tense.  She's still around and breathing and all that good stuff.  Yesterday, I was afraid I would no longer have a dog.  Over the weekend, she got into the trash.  This has happened many, many times before.  Because you know...she's a dog.

This time, she spent two days vomiting all over the apartment.

We took her to the vet...couldn't afford the slew of tests and treatment.  Vet unwilling to let us make payments.  Opted for treatment of her symptoms instead.  Couldn't really afford that either.  Actually, used the money set aside for a car payment.

I don't care.

She's home now, and keeping down small meals of rice and water.    She keeps sleeping, but she has food and water in her now.

I can't pay for my car.  When the insurance withdrawal hits, my bank account will be down to double-digits.  When the other bills hit, I will be overdraft.  There are no groceries in the apartment.  The gas light in my car will be on soon.

I am very frightened about the next week and a half.

But I still have my dog.

And that's okay.

The Bad Touch

Will someone please explain to me the etiquette of grabbing people?  I don't mean something like CIA-backed-forced-kidnapping-of-foreign-national type grabbing, but more along the lines of grabbing the shopgirl and dragging her to a specific aisle.  Is there a rule for that?  Anyone?

That happened to me yesterday.  Some middle-aged woman who probably bathed in garlic just yanked me away.  Just sank her grizzled talons into my elbow and dragged.

Literally.  D-R-A-G-G-E-D.

Now, if she had been sayyyyyyyy Ewan McGregor, I wouldn't mind.  I'd ziptie us together in case he had any other dragging shopgirl needs.  But no.  It was a scary woman in her forties, barking about how she needed the product "IN THE WHITE BOX!  WHERE ARE THE GODDAMN WHITE BOXES??"

I wish I could say I had a witty reply or that I peppersprayed her eyeballs, but no.  She released me upon seeing my (male) co-worker, leaving me as dust in the wind.  And no she didn't drag him along by his elbow.  He did find the product she wanted--in a RED box--butttttt she didn't believe it was the same product, so she didn't buy anything.

Though she did rip open the box once we left her and stole what was in it.

Random Thoughts from my Day

1- A big portion of my Retail Job is walking customers to product.  And y'know, that's fine and groovy and all.  I don't mind...I work in a giant box.  Seriously, stick a --sylvackia suffix at the end of the sign and we could be a small European nation.  Shit's hard to find.  But what really baffles me is after we have walked to the product and the product is sitting right there on the shelf, being all "buy me!  buy me!"... why do customers keep looking at me expectantly until I reach out, grab product and hand said-product to them?  They just...STARE.  And it's not like their arms are broken or missing or anything like that.  We don't sell anything living, so product will not bite.  They say it's the product they want, so it's not like they don't know what to grab.  I don't know why this irritates me so much.

2- I forgive you, BioWare.  I am no longer ashamed to wear my Mass Effect 3 shirt in public.  (Dragon Age 2 still sucks...but it's okay.  Turians are sexier than elves ANY DAY.)

3- I want to hate Glee so badly.  AND I CAN'T.  And that shames me.

4- I hate money.  Every miserable aspect of my life can trace it's miserable-roots back to money.  Specifically, my lack there-of.  More specifically, the fact that my lack-of-money is due to all the money I make being sucked up by bill collectors before I even goddamn see it.  Indentured servitude is not dead!  It just involves fewer physical beatings.

5- I really miss having a working air conditioner in my car.

6- Butter = love!

7- Netflix needs to carry more Jon Pertwee episodes of Doctor Who.  I can only watch "Carnival of Monsters" so many times before I start feeling like I'm caught in a temporal causality loop.  I don't even get to fight a rubber sock puppet.

8- I could totally take on a rubber sock puppet though.

9- ...that sounds a lot more pervy than it really is.

10- But at the same time...rubber sock puppet...fight theme from Star Trek...

11- Or if I were computer-savy like I used to be, I'd just overdub the fight them on the Bela Lugosi/octopus scene.  But that removes me from the actual fighting, which is a no-no.

12- Also?  Streaming Clint Mansell, and that sorta sucks the fighting spirit right out and leaves me feeling like I need more eyeliner and coffee. 

13- That is a stereotype.  I apologize.  (♥ Clint Mansell ♥)

14- I do need more coffee, though.

 Yes, I did think each of these thoughts at one point or another today.  Some followed others a bit more closely.  Thoughty-thoughts.

An open letter to the cyclist who cut me off today...

An open letter to the cyclist who cut me off today:

Dude.  YOU HAVE A BIKE PATH.  It's right there.  Literally.  Just look to your right.  Bike path!  I don't drive my car on your bike path.  Why do you insist on riding your bike on my road?  Trust me, the view ain't that different fifteen feet over.  GO TO YOUR SIDE.

Also, DUDE.  I am DRIVING A MOTOR VEHICLE.  You cut me off.  Thirty pounds of aluminum alloy and your ridiculous spandex outfit will not protect you from a Volkswagen.  I imagine it would look kinda like hamburger squeezed through a cheese grater.  GROSS.  And y'know what?  Your stupid spandex-covered innards would have to stay mooshed in my grille because I don't have the funding to buy a soda, let alone a trip to the car wash.  

Stop being stupid.

Sincerely,
Me