My week started out with back-to-back weird interactions with people.
On Sunday, I had to go to Walmart. Yeah...I know...already crazy. Walmart. And on a Sunday. Crazy talk.
The homeless guy who is always by the car wash in front of the Walmart was standing there with his sign. I rolled my window down and asked him did he need anything out of Walmart. He said some food would be nice.
Cool.
I got him some food from the deli and a couple of pre-made salads because everything in the deli was fried and I'm old school and believe meals should come with veggies of some sort which are NOT fried.
When I walked out of Walmart, he was standing across the row from my truck and told me that the police had made him move.
Cool.
I handed him the bag with his food and told him that I'd thrown in some salads too. He thanked me and said something about not having veggies in a while. Then?
He hopped in the truck he had been standing next to and drove off while I stood there and watched him drive off.
Now, I know homeless people and people with immediate needs sometimes have vehicles but I was just so startled because I have honestly never seen someone who'd been standing on the road with a sign asking for help, drive off into the sunset after someone had given them something.
It was odd.
On Monday, I had to have a plumber come out to do some work. The gentleman was extremely nice. Good people. He invited us to his church and kept trying to get me to change my mind about coming. We kept talking and got on politics. He mentioned the new laws in South Carolina and Mississippi about "religious freedom" and transgender bathroom use. He shared that there was a gay couple in his church that everyone loved who were just great people and he hoped they didn't feel some kinda way thinking that everyone in their church supported the law. Then he said the law in SC was something he supported, however, because...
Him: I don't want some grown man in the bathroom with my 9-year-old daughter.
Me: How would she know? Is she looking under the stall divider? Remember, women don't use urinals, we have doors that we can lock. Also, the woman is NOT a man, she has been reassigned as a woman and, if your daughter HAD looked up under her skirt under the stall she would see the same software.
Him: I just don't want it to happen. I mean, they could do something to girls in the bathroom.
Me: Or they could be so terrified that they are going to have to deal with some crazy mess just because they were in public and had to use the bathroom that they used the bathroom so fast you didn't even notice them. Did you ever read the book "Middlesex?" What about the people who were born with a little bit of this and a little bit of that and their parents, with guidance from their doctor, took action to assign a gender and, unbeknownst to them, assigned the wrong gender just trying to make their baby "normal?" Do you think that poor child deserves to be persecuted for the rest of their life? I mean...ya think that's how God wants you to handle it?
Him: Well, I don't know about all that. I just know how I feel.
SIP: *sigh*
Such a simplistic view of a very real problem in the lives of some is cringe worthy. To me. As many defects as people end up having...yeah...okay.
Dude left so fast he forgot his utility knife. I put it under the sink in the bathroom because I'm not in the mood to see him again.
I’m a Transgender Man in North Carolina. Here’s What the Bathroom Law Means For Me.
I'm actually still feeling some kinda way. I never remember anything about using the bathroom in public because my focus is on getting in and out of there with minimal time with major hand washing. Do people hang out in public bathrooms and that's how it comes to be that this is such a major issue? Are transgender people in South Carolina holding sit-ins in the bathrooms naked from waist down?
I should have asked him could I still come to his church if I was transgender huh?
The MIGHT.BE homeless guy did end up making me laugh cuz really...had you seen me in the parking lot watching him drive off...it was Seth MacFarland movie funny. I was just standing there like, *BLINK,BLINK,BLINK*
Eh...I guess.
Have you had any interesting run-ins with strangers recently?
