I Will Help

I am in the minority in this apartment building. My guess is less than a quarter of the tenants are white here. The landlord treats most tenants like shit. Not me though, because to an unintelligent person, I come across as whip-smart. It takes effort not to yell when I catch him treating other tenants like shit. He gets away with it because a lot of them don't (or barely) speak English.

One interesting thing I noticed about living here is that the non-white tenants are much more friendly than the white ones. They hold doors open. The other day an old black man using a cane moved past me on the stairs to help me haul a laundry cart up the staircase. I felt so guilty letting someone with a handicap do something physical to help me. They always say hello. With eye-contact and everything. They move out of the way on the stairs. If I drop something they rush to pick it up. Last week when I was going into my apartment a little baby going for a walk in the hallway rushed in behind me.

His mother zoomed up and started apologizing to me. I laughed and said it was okay, and waited for the baby to go to her. She was standing right in front of my doorway, looking strangely hesitant, and for a minute I couldn't figure it out. Then I realized - she wouldn't come in because I hadn't invited her. She really thought she couldn't go after her own child? Obviously I encouraged her in, and we exchanged a flurry of "I'm so sorry's" and "Oh it's okay, he's so cute's" while she got him to walk out.

The other day - the one where the heat was out of control - I went to Trader Joe's. I was shopping for myself and a friend who's out of commission. Walking home from the bus stop, sweat was pouring down me as I carried four heavy bags. My friend's little girl had come with me and she was carrying the two lightest bags. For me, they would be light. For her, they were heavy, and we stopped to rest every third of a block or so.

When we were about three blocks from home, a Vietnamese woman came up to us. "Do you live at 123 Willow?" she asked. Surprised, I said yes. She pointed at the girl and explained that she recognized her and also lived there. Then, she took the bags from her and said to me, "I'm going home; I will help." I was so shocked. I was blown away. Who ever does that?

She carried the two bags all the way up to my front door on the second floor. I almost hugged her.

Once Again, I'm All Riled Up

A WalMart commercial opens with a Hispanic woman smiling and talking about how she can get IRS checks, government checks and all other checks cashed at WalMart for only $3 each. Then her husband is shown sitting to her left, agreeing with her about how great it is, and how $3 is less than the $8 charged by other places.

He then magically has a calculator in his hands and shows how over the course of a year going to WalMart can save them $200 a year, which the couple agrees they can spend on other things, like flat-screen tvs or computers, which also magically appear in his hands.

Why am I riled up by this? Surely you can guess. I mean, I suppose there are some people whose finances are so screwed up that they can't even get a regular checking account at a bank right? Okay fine, so WalMart provides a check-cashing service. But it's pretty gross to market this service to minorities.

Also, it grosses me out that WalMart is encouraging people on government assistance to purchase even more non-necessities like flat-screen televisions. If you want to point out that you sell food or sundries or diapers or clothing? Fine. Those are all necessities. Nobody needs a flat-screen.

I'm not disappointed in WalMart for this, because I've had such a low opinion of them for so long. But it's become blatantly obvious that people truly do not understand how things like credit or mortgages work. Or maybe, it's that they don't want to.

If WalMart wanted to do something impressive, start offering a service instead of your sweat-shop-in-China cheap products. What kind of service? I'm so glad you asked! How about a class offered on how to manage finances responsibly? How to avoid buying a house for more money than a person/couple can truly afford?

Look at Your Hand

You would be right to say it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work retail, but there are little things to know. How to properly bag food. How to count back change. How to talk with a customer while still ringing them up. For some people these things are surprisingly difficult. In San Francisco, when giving a customer change it seems to be popular to hand them the dollar bills, then the receipt with the coins on top. As if the receipt is a little tray. I hate this passionately.

Today while shopping an older woman was the cashier, and she very politely called me out when I made a face as she did it. I apologized, and she then apologized back, saying she doesn't know why she does it, but she hates when others do it to her. Then she said, I just figure when they do that to me it's because they don't want to touch my skin.

Oh. My. God. Is this not 2009 in San Francisco? I want to meet the assholes who would make this sweet old black lady think they wouldn't want to touch her skin so I can beat them up. And yet.

Yet I remember how I used to meet my grandpa every Tuesday at Wendy's for him to take me to lunch. That time when I was standing next to him at the counter as he paid the black, teenage cashier. I watched as he held his hand out to give her coins, and dropped them towards her hand. Make whatever excuse you want - believe me, I want to make them - but I am sure he meant to avoid touching her hand.

I am not even sure he realized he was doing it - it may have been instinct for him. This is a man who for decades, worked as a teacher in New York City, with children of all races. But I realized, and my jaw dropped. The cashier noticed, and she looked at me to see if I did also. There were people behind us - it was the lunch rush in a fast food restaurant. The cashier seemed embarrassed, when really it was my grandpa who should have felt that emotion.

I mouthed I'm so sorry to the cashier, and she nodded to me. I refuse to excuse my grandpa's actions, no matter that he's dead, no matter how much I loved him. I spent years working on him - getting him to refer to adult women as women rather than "the girl", and even with all that effort he still sometimes forgot.

Not really sure where I'm going with this. Not sure what makes me feel more sad today - that some random black lady thought people might not want to touch her skin. Or the fact that I know she's right.

Tuesday Ramblings

• Soon I am going out of the country for the first time in my life, to a country where English is not the main language, and am traveling alone. Petrified.
• I have not packed yet at all.
• Before I move there are tons of things I'd like to donate. I put up an ad on Craigslist specifically saying the things must be picked up and after six or so years of dealing with people through Craigslist I am finally seeing what others bitch about with people flaking and not following through.
• The handles on my dresser drawers are little white knobs. I hang things from them and like to consider that "decoration."
• My future roommate has either never had a roommate or not had one in a long time, and she e-mails me every single day about something small and inconsequential, like "Hey Green, just wanted to let you know I moved the magazine that was on the kitchen counter, so there'll be an extra few square inches when you move in, unless a new magazine has come in the mail before your move."
  
• This morning I did something illegal - I talked on my cell phone while driving. Luckily I did not kill anyone (or get pulled over).
  
• Lately I have been reading a fiction book called Next, by Michael Crichton which is all about genetics and other sciencey stuff that's way beyond my head. There is a fake article in the book that talks about psychological neoteny, and how people take longer to reach mental maturity because they have formal education now, well into their twenties, which requires a child-like stance of receptivity. The fake article goes on to explain that in earlier human societies (a.k.a. the olden days, pre-college) people reached maturity in the teen years. I found it all very interesting, especially when I thought about 9am, and how he JUST started his very first job in his entire life a few months ago, and he seems to flail about quite often.*
• I just want to give a shout-out to Bed Bath & Beyond because (I'm 15 again and that's what people do at that age? Noooo, that can't be why!) it turns out they will let you return things even if you've opened them. Yay for store credit!

*I just want to reiterate that this was a fake article. Not real. Though this psychological neoteny thing is real.

Props to the Smelly Stuff

That lotion I used yesterday that smelled too flowery and overpowering? May smell bad, but gotta be honest here - it kept my hands pretty soft throughout the day. I only put it on that one time in the morning, and it lasted through half a dozen handwashings and past dinner time.

In case you were considering it.

Levi's Sucks

It's hard to explain exactly what it is, but Levi's? They suck. I have four pairs of their jeans - it's not that the quality of their clothing sucks. Because it doesn't.

There's something about their store. I don't know if it's too big for me, or it's too loud with their music or what.

But the few times I've been there, I get hot and overwhelmed and can't find anything and can't get out of there fast enough.

You might say to shop on their website, but I only do that with companies I know very well, and Levi's changed the way they size their jeans about a year ago, and I haven't been able to acclimate to it yet, and find a style that looks right on me.

That's all.