Thursday, June 28, 2012

You White. You Hair Gold.

In case you don't know already, I had to move back in with my parents.  I got a job up in Elizabeth, but from my old house in the south part of Colorado Springs, it would have been over an hour drive each way.  I like living in my car as much as the next person (you can tell by all the empty Diet Cokes and trash on the floor), but that's just a bit much for me.  So we decided to put the house up for sale and move in with the parental units so we wouldn't have to do it frantically in 6 days if the house sells.  Also, they live in Black Forest, which is a bit closer to Elizabeth (just in case we don't find a house to buy soon). 


My adorable house.  Wanna buy it?

I've lived in my house on the Southsiiiide for over three years now.  That's definitely enough time for me to turn gangsta, which is of course, awesome, and for me to realize that the white folk up here are super different than my white trash ways.  I am accustomed to falling asleep to the lulling sound of fireworks being set off in the cul-de-sac well before the Fourth of July, this one guy's laugh that sounds like this: "huh huh huh" "huh" "huh," and the occasional Gatorate-bottle-whipping extravaganza (We poe, we can't afford no guns.).  Yes, you heard it.  Whipping.  Let me enlighten you.


You're welcome.  Anyway, so I'm totally used to leaving my grocery cart in the middle of the aisle at King Soopers, where I am also no longer shocked to see multiple thongs and/or back boobs, be harrassed to buy someone's extra food stamps so he can buy crack rocks, and walk past the 3 security guards at the door without realizing they are even there.  If that isn't hood, I don't know what is.  One time my mom went shopping with me at the dollar store off of Academy and there was a line that had 4 or 5 people in it waiting to check out.  Let it be known that my mother has lived in White American Suburbia since 1991 and finds it rude that people leave their carts in the middle of the aisle at King Soopers.  So Mother Dearest did not want to wait in line.  In Monument, one does not wait in line.  They open up more lines for you in Monument and you still look at them condescendingly, like, "why didn't you do that before I had to sigh in distaste?"  She looked at me and whispered conspiratorally, "Maybe if I can make eye contact with the checker they will realize they should open up another line."  I laughed.  HAH.  This be the southside.  Yo.  Oh, Mother.  That doesn't work in these here parts.  I watched as Mom tried to make eye contact with the checker.  It was a little uncomfortable.  I think she finally did, so of course, as expected, the checker did not call to have another line opened.  I think she actually started checking slower.  It really was a learning oppotunity. 

I have learned in the past 3 years that if I don't want to be judged at my King Soopers or Dollar Store, that I need to be unwashed, wear sweatpants, and drag my 2 children who do not look like they have the same father to the store.  If I did go to the store, say, after work, with nice clothes, hair fixed, and no bastard-looking children, that's when I got the crusty stink eyes.  Why this white girl be buyin' our food? they'd say with their eyes.  I mean this in the least racist way possible.  That's just my southside accent.  Although I've never seen an Asian with back boobs.  I digress.

I went to King Soopers in Monument a few days ago.  I was unwashed and wearing sweatpants.  No -better - sweatSHORTS!  I know!  I knew I'd be judged, but OMG I just did not want to take a shower that day.  I had it coming.  I walked into the store.  The aisles were wider, the produce brighter, they had an ENTIRE AISLE OF ORGANIC CEREAL.  UP FRONT!  I didn't even have to go all the way back to the prescription reading glasses next to the old magazine rack in the back to find my Peanut Butter Puffins.  The ladies with their perfectly cut soccer mom hair looked classic and hoity in their perfect-for-grocery-shopping low-heeled shoes.  My flip-flops with holes in them began to cower in fear, which was weird for shoes, and I could swear my adult acne became more noticeable.  The ladies looked at my sweatshorts, my greasy hair, my adult acne, my personified shoes, and I could hear them calling their HOA's about why they were letting poor people in.  But maybe I just made that up.  Actually, instead of running her cart into mine and then blaming me for poor cart driving skills, when one lady accidentally bumped me SHE APOLOGIZED.  Where is this place? I thought while swinging my cart in circles in the giant aisle singing The Hills Are Alive.

I SWEET LOVE the old bread on sale section.  My dad calls it the Used Bread Section.  It's, like, the best part of any store, ever.  You can get rolls that are only 4 hours older than the other rolls for 14 cents!  They had pita bread, which is usually $4 a pack, for 79 cents.  You can't not buy every single pack when they are only 79 cents.  Even if that does make you seem like a homeless person.  So I bought them all.  It's seriously still such a great deal that I would re-deal with the embarrassing mockery of the checker just for more 79 cent pita bread.  He was all 19 years old and consescending, like, "looks like you hit that sale section pretty hard," and I was like, "huh, yeah." <--Brilliant retort.  Because when I don't have makeup on, I have low self-esteem when normally I'd be like, whatever 19 year old, you'd totally be hitting on my old ass in a club.  If I had makeup on.  And it was dark.  And they let 19 year olds in clubs.  What was I talking about?  So then I guiltilly bought a scratch ticket because rich people don't buy scratch tickets and I could feel the judgement burning into my back, and I zoomed out of the store and into the parking lot, where of course I couldn't find my car because it had camoflaged itself with dirt and I couldn't see it next to all the shiny Mercedezez.  The one redeeming thing about the parking lot was I heard an old guy say "shit" to his wife (which Monumenteers don't say in public because WWJD.) and I wrote "shit in the lot" into the note section of my phone so I wouldn't forget to write about it.  I got in my car and promptly forgot how to drive because I regressed into my 16 year old self buying groceries at the Monument King Soopers who just got her license and I drove like a sofaking weetahded teenager until I found the parking lot exit, and drove away breathing heavily and grasping the steering wheel because that was INTENSE.

Moral of the story?  It's hard being white no matter where you live. 

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