DENIED -- The Return!

How exciting! I remembered to grab a length of DENIED stickers and stuff them in my purse. Because yesterday I saw that same "Chicago to Mexico in 30 Seconds" ad on the side of a large parked tourist vehicle, some kind of fake trolley car. I slapped that baby with a DENIED sticker, and slapped it good.

So I find that if I wait a couple of days between posts, I accumulate interesting stories for a good post instead of, "Hmmm...let's see...how about a narrated tour of data-sorting an Excel spreadsheet?" (Sorry about that.)

Such as last Friday, when a woman at work called me a Daigo! My ethnic-slur cherry has been popped. This woman is always saying derogatory things about Italians, such as when she said "God Bless You," in the you-just-sneezed way, upon the pronunciation of my last name, or when I was able to pronouce a different multi-syllable surname, she sneered, "What are you, Italian?" So on Friday, she says in conversation, with utter contempt: "My son-in-law talks with his hands -- He's Italian! They all do!" I smiled and said in a good-natured tone of voice, "You've really got it in for my people, huh?" She rolled her eyes at me and groaned, "Friggin' daigos." Without even thinking, the words "Oh my god!" escaped my lips, as in, "Oh, my god, you actually felt that was acceptable to say, and right to my face!" I need to run to the travel store down the street and get a miniature Italian flag to display on my desk. (Hopefully, it won't be interpreted as a response to the World Cup.)

Today has been a day of racist and Christian-supremacist forwarded emails. The problem with exchanging email addresses with the oldest people in your family, the people who are the last generation to remember the precious family stories that need to be shared and retold, is the dramatically-increased probability of receiving nasty, obnoxious forwarded emails. I do not believe pro-America means anti-every other country. I do not believe it is a sign of devotion to your faith to shit-talk people of other faiths. I do not find security in my sexuality or the sacredness of my marriage through gay-bashing. I do not need to slam other ethnicities to feel good about my own. By hey, maybe I'm just QUIRKY like that! Argh. And it's very rare that I don't know it's coming; any email with a subject heading that starts with "Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Fwd:" can't possibly be good news. But I click on it anyway, and fill with rage and despair. There are days when I feel plucky and write pointed responses to this garbage (which never changes the mind of the sender, but at least gets me off their "Would Appreciate Racist Humor" forwarding list.) Today is not one of those days.

So on this crappy day, I got a friendly reminder from eBay that the auction for the Shy Violet doll I'm watching will be ending soon. Good old Shy Violet, that doll I loved dearly and who disappeared at some point in my childhood, whose picture I use as my profile image no less (that's not MY doll, just a picture I found on the internet.) Winning the bidding war (at only $10 with shipping) has been my afternoon pick-me-up.

And hey, she's colored.