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Friday, April 12, 2002 WARNING: This entry contains badwords and crudness. (Crudites. Ha.) FOLLOW UP: Last night I got home from Austin and the white pick-up was double parked in someone else's space. I was glad, but I can see that that guy's apparently not keen on making friends in our complex. I got a stupid ticket on the way back from Austin. Not for speeding, but for my expired inspection sticker. DAMMIT. It didn't occur to me that I had to get it updated each freaking YEAR. Liberals here like to say that our cars are more carefully regulated than our guns. It's true. I'm just gonna buy a gun and take the bus. If you are a person who used to live with me and you're reading this right now, searching for details of my life on which you can make bitchy comments next time you see me (such as the fact that I buy myself clothes or occasionally go out with my friends)... stop it. I no longer feel guilty for doing things that every normal person does. In the paraphrased words of Gloria Gaynor, Destiny's Child, and probably many other pop acts: you thought I would be depressed and destitute without you, but you were wrong, so go get your own life and stop commenting on mine. Today I felt proud of myself that I didn't fall into the bad mood that I normally would have fallen into after all the stuff that happened to me during the rush hour. First some disabled homeless guy asked me for money while I was on the way to the ATM, and I got mad at myself for telling him, "I don't have any yet." Sometimes I say stupid (but always honest) stuff. Then, in another neighborhood, on another errand, a second d/grifter accosted me. It was an old guy. He says, "Excuse me, ma'am... I'm sorry to bother you but my wife [mumble, mumble,] so can I ask you to spare a couple of dollars?" And this time, exasperated, I growl, "I'm a single mom with a shitty job and three kids to raise. No, I'm not giving you any money." He mutters reproachfully, "My wife doesn't even have a job." I think (but don't say), "THAT'S MY POINT." I go on to think and not say, "TELL HER TO GET A GODDAMNED JOB. AND GET ONE, YOURSELF, WHILE YOU'RE AT IT." Telling the story to a friend later, the late response ideas go on: "MISTER, IF YOU DIDN'T COME OUT OF MY CUNT, I'M NOT GONNA SUPPORT YOU." Then there was an even better, but much cruder, clever remark that ran through my head. I won't type it here, in case people don't have their smelling salts handy. Just know that it was along the lines of the one above, but it expanded the audience of people I would support and how they would relate to the body part so colloquially described. I mean, I don't hate homeless people, but it bothers me when people ask me for money or anything else that I obviously can't spare. I can see homeless people -- down on their luck, maybe disabled, probably mentally ill -- thinking it might be a good idea to hit up the suits trotting between posh lobbies downtown. I can't stand them hitting me up, especially when I'm emerging from my cruelly dented, primer-spotted car with my three children in tow. ESPECIALLY when they're seemingly able-bodied and obviously just targeting me because it's easiest to intimidate a single woman with her kids. Sometimes, in a long, lonely parking lot, a pan-handling is nothing more than a polite mugging. But I didn't get mad today. Not even the rush-hour road-ragers got me down. I was proud of myself. I may not have to become Amish, after all. (Okay, here it is... "Mister, if you didn't come out of my cunt, and you aren't coming into my cunt on a regular basis, then I don't have the money or the time." Don't tell anybody I said that, okay?) (But don't use it without giving me credit, either.) |