Have you ever had anyone tell you something that has just been burned into your mind? Something that you just know you are going to remember for the rest of your life, even if you don't even remember the person or their name, just what they said?
There was this one time, when I was a seasonal employee at Home Depot. I was at my post at the register waiting for customers, when this little lady walked by and said hello and smiled at me, and she had a little folding stool with her. She was a little bit older, slightly heavier, and had a bandana around her head. She took her little stool with her to the magazine racks and folded it out and sat down so she could browse the magazines. I didn't think anything of it until one of my coworkers came charging up to my register full of self-righteous bluster and said "Don't you just hate that!?". I was pretty confused and asked him what he meant when he pointed at the woman at the magazines and said "THAT, isn't that just disgusting! How lazy can you get right?"
I was totally shocked, here stood a man who had kindly and warmly welcomed me into this job when I first started, me being super shy that I am. ridiculing a woman who OBVIOUSY had some sort of cancer, for being too weak to stand on her own. Not to mention that my own mother (the creator of Bloggity Blog) had gone through a terrible time with Leukemia (a progressive, malignant disease of the blood-forming organs and hemoglobin). I was so stunned by his reaction, I didn't even manage to get angry about it until AFTER our conversation was over. But I responded by saying "shuttup or she'll hear you" to which he said "I DON'T CARE, if you can't even f******* walk, you should stay at home."
I turned to him and said "You do realize she has cancer right? And that my mom had cancer too, and had to do the same thing with a walker. Because she was too weak and in too much pain to be able to walk around a store in the same way a healthy person can".
To that he walked away, and THEN I got angry. How dare he JUDGE other people just because they're sick? I thought it was pretty impressive this lady had come up with such a tactical method of shopping by herself. During my rebellious teenage years when I didn't even want to be seen in public with my parents, I still stuck by my mom while she used those little wheel around shopping carts that beep obnoxiously when you go into reverse. But they are there for a reason.
I love my mom, and she has saved my life multiple times, I can't ever imagine a day where she's not going to be here, to cook her amazing food or show me some cool new blog thing or show me a thing or three about about what her opinion is about my opinion. Indominable Mom, the survivor.
I swear if I ever see that guy again I'm going to tell exactly what I think of his self-righteous opinion, because I will never forget what he said. I feel ashamed of it, and for him.
