Fifty Shades of Fucked Up

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The following is a true story. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent, as well as the guilty. I recently went on a short-notice road trip to help out a friend. It wound up being far from what I had expected. Upon hearing highlights from my day trip, in which I spent almost sixteen of my twenty-six hours of absence from my home either sitting in or driving my car, a coworker told me, “That’s fifty shades of fucked up.” I decided he was right, and told him that he just named my blog. Thanks, Chupi.

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My View of the Train Wreck

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I’ve been staying away from the news as much as I can, but it’s hard not to slow down and examine a train wreck sometimes. So, in the first week, I spent considerably more time on Facebook than I usually do, reading peoples rants, opinions, and vitriol. It broke my heart that some people are behaving the way they are. I commented minimally. Usually, just to be funny when others were making jokes. I mean, a person still has to smile and laugh. Everything can’t always be serious or terrifying or outrageous. When I read the news, I made sure it was from sources I know and trust, not new or unknown sites.

It has been a terrifying ten days. I’ve cried more times than I’d like to admit, though only once has been for myself. I’m white, middle class, and born in America. My only downfall is that I’m female, and really have always been more of a lower middle class. But I have my rights as an American citizen and they can’t be taken away from me unless I do bad things.

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The Bitter Taste of Racism

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I've spent most of my life working in customer service. In one way or another, every job I've ever had required me to interact with paying customers. Those jobs taught me a lot about people. They also gave me reason to watch others when they interact with people who are just trying to do their jobs.

When I order takeout, there are only a handful of places that I go. I tend to be a regular customer at restaurants where they know me. I like to order there so that I can look around and see that it's clean. If someone else is making my food, I prefer knowing that they're going to do it right and that they regularly follow food safety standards. There are three places that I frequent where friends of mine work. I was at one of them earlier this week when I witnessed a bizarre and racist encounter.

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Jesus Bacon

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I realized a while back how inundated we are with advertising for bacon. It seems like every fast food commercial is advertising something new with bacon. Even numerous sit-down-and-order-from-a-waitress restaurants have TV ads for their bacon slathered dishes. This got me thinking about how much pork is marketed in this country.

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