Unwanted conversations – a series

05 May 2021 Leave a comment

by wifemothereventplanner in I need to tell you about this right now Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Are you the victim of unwanted conversations? Do you often become the ear for folks who have no one else to talk to or who’ve driven all their friends and family away? Do you have strangers coming up to you, acting like they’ve known you for years? If you answered yes to any of these questions, come sit by me. I have a ton of stories for you. Let me share 2 of my recent favs:

Conversation 1:

Some quick background on this one.

We traveled for the first time in over a year. On a plane! To a beach! It was glorious. We had so much fun. We went to Cocoa Beach. I had many judgements about it prior to landing. Florida isn’t my fav (except Miami, West Palm, Boca… and maybe Naples). Orlando lands at the very tippy bottom of places I’d like to go. But some good friends invited us and I loved it. I was completely wrong. We stayed right on the water and had a magical time (no mouse ears to be found).

I expected a lot of mask rule breakers down there – I was wrong about that too. People were, for the most part, masked when asked.

In general my philosophy about masks and vaccines is consistent. You do you. I’ll do me.

Once the people I cared for most were fully vaccinated, I forgot about everyone else. Which sounds… not nice, but it’s meant to be more…carefree.

I really don’t care if you don’t believe in masks. I don’t care if you believe Bill Gates is chipping me (jokes on you, it was Steve Jobs and he chipped me on June 29, 2007 when he got me hooked to this little appendage in my hand).

I am the mama to two kiddos. Those are the only people I owe a lesson in humanity and science to. The rest of you are on your own.

So when I see an unmasked person in a store, I go about my business. I have mine on. I’m good. This is also my philosophy for most things now. I have no desire or inclination to preach or lecture to you about legit anything. Unless you’re my aforementioned kids, who I’ll preach to all day and they contractually have to listen.

Back to the conversation.

On our way to the airport from the perfect stay – clean beaches, sweet people – we called an Uber.

BTW – we’d taken multiple Ubers while down there and each of the drivers was a….shall we say….”characters”. But in all good ways.

This guy was immediately different. He hopped out of his car and announced that he didn’t believe in masks and he was fine with us not wearing one. We smiled and thanked him and got in the car. My husband and I are both fully vaccinated and so were relieved to take our masks off inside.

Then he started talking. And didn’t stop for 45 minutes. He didn’t even need us, so maybe it was less of a conversation and more of speech. His biggest issue seemed to be with gender identity. Why and how did that topic come up? Who knows! Morons know how to weave all their hatred together in genius ways.

He was stuck on transgender. What are we supposed to call them? He? She? They? He went on and on.

I asked him if he has a lot of transgender people taking his ride. He said no. He’s never met any. Hmmmm. Ok. Me either, I said. “So when do you run into this problem?” I asked. He ignored the question and went on.

Was it my job to educate him? I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I am still learning. I just googled what Cisgender means yesterday for gods sake. This is what I should have done. I should have told him what I do when I don’t know something about a subject – I shut the F up. That’s my go-to response. That needs to be more people’s go-to response.

By this time my husband had put on earphones and was taking a nap. Bastard.

I almost felt like this driver was waiting for me to get all this out. Or was this speech just on demand and he started it as soon as a new passenger came in? I didn’t know how to stop it. I thought being stone cold silent would send the message that I don’t want to talk to you. I just want you to take me to the airport. It didn’t work.

I finally took my phone out and started pretending to type. It worked.

Steve Jobs saved me again. Or was it Bill Gates?

Conversation 2

Yesterday we had someone at the house who needed measurements from our bedroom window down to the patio. I told him the master bedroom was the first one off the stairs to the left.

He smiled and said a friend of his just told him you can’t say “master bedroom” anymore because it refers to language used during slavery.

It does? I hadn’t heard that. None of the 1,000 podcasts I listen to everyday to make me smarter talked about that.

I looked it up. Turns out that Sears invented the term in the 20s. The word itself goes back even further. It has many many meanings and ways of usage. Let’s assume the worst?

So someone at Sears, I’m guessing a dude invented the word, was a massive jerk who wanted to embed a racist term while trying to sell sheets? Maybe? Maybe not.

Last July, a real estate company in Houston announced they would stop using “master bedroom” in their marketing materials. Many others followed suite and claimed wokeness.

Remember last July? Most of us just learned about institutional racism a month or two before thanks to a 15 year old. Now we’re equipped to start erasing words from the English language??

And I love that the “fix” is in marketing. Genius. Don’t worry about red lining or the landlords that won’t sell to people of color. Please fix the marketing lingo! That’ll do it.

I’m not saying it’s right or wrong. I’m not black. I don’t know if words like master ring differently to different ears. I just think maybe we should talk about it a little more. Before dismissing it.

Most importantly, does this mean I can’t sing Master of House from Le Miz? Stop the madness!

Also – why do I have to talk about this with my construction guy? I just wanted to tell you where to go to measure the stupid window for our stupid reno. Come on!

This happens all the time. People need to share I guess (says the girl who writes the blog where she thinks people need her to share lol).

I can’t be the only one this happens to? I need a resting bitch face. Although I wear a mask outside so maybe I need resting bitch eyes.

Can anyone relate?

Something bad…and then something good

26 Oct 2020 6 Comments

by wifemothereventplanner in I need to tell you about this right now Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

This past weekend my daughter went into New York City to visit a friend. On the way back, on the train, there was an incident. She texted me that the train had stopped about 50 miles from our station with no message from the conductor on what happened or how long it would be.

“Wait it out”, I said, “I’m sure you’ll be moving soon.”

An hour later she texted me, “They made us get off the train. There was a jumper.”

A jumper. I got a pit in my stomach. A jumper. I wrote back some words of encouragement and she said she’d write me with what she was planning on doing. A few minutes later she’d found someone to share an Uber with to our station.

Usually I wouldn’t think twice about this and I’d be happy she had a solve. But it’s Covid and everything is skewed in my brain. Who are they? Is it safe? Blah blah blah…. on and on and on. But I know her. She’s been so careful and she’s so smart – I told myself to back off (backing off is NOT in my DNA btw) and let her figure it out.

Another hour later she texted me her ETA and I said I’d be there to pick her up. I got there early and sat in the car. While I waited in the car I started thinking about the sad soul that died. And, as per usual, instead of thinking a happy thought or distracting myself – I went down a deep rabbit hole. It’s like my superpower.

Those of us that take mass transit often are used to the signs on the platform. They usually say something like, “You are not alone” or “If you need to talk, we are here.”

I started googling statistics and learned that more than half of train accidents involve a suicide. And that over 60% of engineers will have an incident during their careers. Heartbreaking all around.

By the time Kera got there I was totally wound up.

She texted me that she was here and that she saw my car and was headed over. I got my shit together. Put on Pop2K on the radio and opened the window to get some fresh air. My only saving grace during my sad deep dive was that I hadn’t cried. Points for that! No red eyes to cover up.

Although her catching me crying would have been nothing new. My kids and husband have both walked in on me many times in the middle of a good cry about, you name it, Syria, childhood hunger, poverty and said,”uhhhh are you ok?” What a silly question. When have I been ok??

Here’s the good part.

As she walked to the car I noticed that she wasn’t alone. There were two older ladies with her. Kera said,” Mom the two women I rode with want to meet you.”

Then these two, sweet women proceeded to tell me that they wanted, needed, to meet the mother of this wonder girl that had helped them. They were going to Philadelphia – hadn’t traveled this way before – and had no idea of what to do when the train shut down. They said there were just standing on the platform in a daze when Kera approached them. They had never Uber’d before. They didn’t know how that worked but knew instantly that they could trust this girl. They called her a blessing. Called her an answer to a prayer and many other gushy things. And I did what I think any respectable mother would do. I started sobbing uncontrollably. From the look on their faces – they weren’t expecting that.

None of what they said was a surprise and Kera was probably mortified by the scene I caused – but here’s the thing. I was in my hole of sadness and they pulled me right out. Catapulted me right out. I told them how grateful I was for their kind words and how much I had needed to hear something good and positive. We said our goodbyes and I asked Kera what their story was.

Two sisters, part of a big family from Belize. They’d just had a death in the family and were traveling from New York City to Philly to be with everyone.

I took a deep breath as we drove home.

I’m so glad for them that Kera found them. And I’m so glad for Kera that she has another story to tell from that day. The story that has some bad, but also some good.

Kera and her new pals