They say a picture is worth a thousand words.... but anyway that is besides the point, I will try to stay within a thousand words here...
..........So, I was at the local gas station tonight, picking up some stuff I didn't feel like running to the store for, when this girl comes walking in that some would describe as "white trash" - a little blond white girl, with grey sweat pants rolled up (likely trying to keep cool with the nice heat spell we've had here lately), white spaghetti-strap tank top, hair pulled up in a unfashionably messy bun, eating on a bag of salt and vinegar chips (well they may have not been salt & vinegar, but s&v are my favorite chips so that's what comes to mind when I recall the situation)....
So I'm standing there at the counter, waiting for the cashier to bag up my groceries, when the little white girl comes walking in, walks right up to the counter and starts craning her neck around toward behind the counter where the cashier stood. She was looking around quite intently, almost like she had left something there and was intently trying to locate it, popping chips in her mouth the whole time.
"Can I help you with something?" the black store clerk said to her, kind of with a puzzled tone.
"U got a phone?" she says in a half inquisitive, but mostly entitled manner.
The store clerk just stopped and looked at her for a minute with a puzzled face, almost like he wasn't sure if he wanted to pull out his jerk personality or his nice one - (I've seen him pull out his not-so-nice side on people before, and I was wondering if he was about to do it now).
I was waiting almost as expectantly as the girl was, because I was curious what he was going to say to her......He kind of took a moment, like a pause for breath and then he asked -
"Is it a local call?" He was still looking at her sideways like he wasn't sure how to react to her.
"Yeah," she said back after a brief moment of looking at him also like she wasn't too sure how she wanted to proceed with her attitude.
He just kind of shook his head and kept bagging up my things....
As I left, their voices trailed off, with him asking her questions, her answering him etc...... I just laughed as I walked out thinking about her audacious attitude, and his reaction, particularly because I'm in that gas station often and I'm quite familiar with the attitude he is quite capable of doling out to someone he feels it being rude or whatever.
Anyway, as I walked home, the whole situation made me kind of think back to the days when I myself didn't have my own phone... It's hard to believe, but back in 2002-2003, I often found myself walking to the lobby of a local hotel just to access the lobby pay phones to make telephone calls.
In those day, I recollected, if I needed to use a phone, I probably would have had no problem walking into a business and asking to use their phone - minus the entitled attitude of course, lol.
In a way though, I saw myself in that girl - well, the me that used to be...so outside the cares and concerns of the "higher social class," ...willing to walk in a random business and ask to use their phone - hec, the car I drove used to overheat regularly and I used to HAVE to stop at places with smoke coming out the hood and wait till it cooled down. I remember quite vividly stopping at an oil change place and waiting there for awhile while the guys took a look at the car, gave it water and I waited till it was drivable again......
The whole scenario tonight just got me thinking ... thinking back to the days when i had to hit up a hotel to make a phone call, back to the days when I finally got "my own landline" and it was such a BIG deal (and having "caller Id" on my landline was like the highlight of my tech life)...back to the days when I knew I didn't fit into "higher society" and part of me just didn't care........
I love these little moments in life that kind of take you back - not that I would want to go back to that necessarily, but amid all the daily frustrations and feelings of inadequacy that can come with striving for more, it is nice to remember where you've come from....and just how far you've come. I look at my Blackberry phone and all the technology I have around me now, and I think - "Wow, the me back then, looking at the me now, would have thought I was quite cool!"
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