I have never been a person to believe any stereotypes about groups of people. I always found them silly, like urban legends. Also, back in the day, there used to be a buzz word called "prejudice" that went hand in hand with "racism", which I interpreted as a child to mean you do not see a persons exterior, but the person. We no longer hear this word as it has been replaced by "diversity" and "tolerance", which in my opinion, ahve pushed an opposite attitude. But I digress, I am ranting about something that has been on my mind, but is a bit of tangent for this post.
Anyway, one of the stereotypes I used to hear was that "old people are mean". When people told me that, I would say that's silly, my grandparents aren't mean, the people at the nursing homes I volunteered at from time to time weren't mean, and wonder why people would say such a thing.
Then at 18 I started my job working at a supermarket.
Everyday old people would come on my line and yell at me "Hurry up now, hurry up!" "I don't want a dime, a dime is too small! Can't you see that dime is too small? I need two nickels!" "You're taking too long Girl, my doctor said I am not supposed to be on my feet this long!" I remember one time, one elderly lady decided to come to the store at 5 PM on a winter night and had the luck to be stuck behind someone with 5 WIC checks. Back in those days a WIC check was a check was designated exactly what you were allowed to purchase (I don't know if they are different now). So one check would say "1 lb of beans, store brand, 2 cans of store brand juice concentrate". Then the next would say "5 jars of vegetable baby food", and each would be rung up as a seperate order. Five checks meant five seperate orders, plus a nother order for whatever the customer decided to buy with their own money. This would take time. I got chewed out by the old lady behind these people because she recently had cataract surgery and her doctor said she is not supposed to drive after dark. After she chewed me out, she went to the store CSR (despite is continuing to get darkness and running out of time) and complained about me, so I got chewed out by my boss as well. I left that day in tears. In retrospect, why I cried instead of standing up to my boss, I crop up to being a teenager.
I went home and asked my mother, "Mom, why are old people so mean?" She said that she thinks that some feel they have lived long enough and do not have to be nice anymore, but she said she really thinks many just don't feel very well, and that can make you tired an grumpy. Now, I was a teenager at the time, so the concept of not feeling well for extended periods of time was sort of beyond me.
After 6 weeks of morning sickness and 13 years without a good night's sleep, I now get it. I have become a horrible person. I am so ashamed. I keep snapping at people when I get tired at night for talking to me. But what's more, I have been saying horrible, unpolitically correct things and I am starting to sound like Dr. Romano from ER. My husband, of all people, keeps trying to counter my remarks by talking to the kids about political correctness. For what it's worth, my nasty tongue has not been limited to one liners about the French, and Puerto Ricans, and orphans, and drug addicts, and Italians, and the handicapped,and Jamaican bobsledders,(I don't think I ever made fun of the Greeks though) but my inlaws have been a great source of humor for me as well, there is just too much ammo there. And normally I would think these things and never say them, lately I don't bite my tongue. It really is because I feel so crappy. I mean that is no excuse for unChristian behavior, and I am not excusing myself. Each day, at certain times (usually at 7 PM when my neighbors start frying dinner and for whatever reason, our place is downwind and gets flooded with their cooking smells) I get really sick, and all I can do is lie on the bed and think about how sick I feel. Then I start to get really angry that everyone seems to go about their daily routines without the smallest smells sending puke up their esophagus, I go from room to room looking for some respite to no avail, and that is when I end up saying terrible things. I cannot figure out why I feel the need to do this. I mean the things I say are not random like I have Tourette's Syndrome. There is always a conversation that my remarks are apropos to, they are just not worded nicely.
Anyway, I am not annoyed at any group such as Jamaican bobsledders or anything. I could care less. Just in recent weeks, I have had more remarks made to me where someone instantly defined my marital status, my ability to speak English, my political affiliations etc. simply based on a quick glance of my external appearance. Whereas for whatever reason I found it somewhat annoying before, I suppose because I feel so crappy,and because of fequency, it really bothers me and makes me want to hurl bricks and shatter the invisible philosophy that makes people feel the need to rely on such ignorance all the time. So I guess my way narrow minded emotional way of dealing is to sound like the opposite than what is expected of me.
