Helping

So when Ashley told me she wanted to see The Help, I groaned. (I can't remember if it was inward or not.) Like, honestly, I would rather not see another movie about benevolent white people who have no sense of larger structural oppression. I don't need to see a movie about that; I'm around white people who already think that and I see it on tv when I am trying to avoid blatant misogyny.
So I was reading this article which is written for young clergywomen about the same book, and I am so glad someone finally laid a particular set of thoughts out for me that I think I've been circling for awhile but have struggled to articulate. The author writes that "the challenge of living amidst privilege can be that Jesus' teachings are incredibly indicting to our own lives, which is part of what makes stories focused on morals so much more inviting, and so much more tempting, than stories focused on ethics." Although I had never thought about it in terms of this book, I have always found all the prattle of most of my fellow Christians to be disappointingly about living to some vague moral stance more based on things like not having sex before marriage or abortions. I can't even think of a fellow Christian peer who has ever once mentioned structural problems or Jesus's work on said subject. (I had a priest who would give sermons on religious tolerance and women's unpaid and unacknowledged labor, and seriously, that guy was mostly awesome. On the other side of the religious spectrum, I can think of a few atheists who had it together when it came to these kinds of problems.)
I've been meditating frequently on how disappointed I am with other Christians, because I suspect the why is important, and I think this might be a very big answer on the why. Because, ultimately, if we aren't against the forces that cause things like poverty and discrimination, that, honestly, what are we in this religion for? Are we here on earth as Christians because we want to improve our communities or because we need something to make us feel superior? If we focus on ending injustices, we are here for the community. If we focus on morals not only are we going to fall short on what God calls us to do, but we're going to end up tending to our egos and not the flock.
As some other notes, I really like the rest of this article for pointing out some of the difficulties with race. I loved this quote that the author brings up "For the dishonesty upon which a society is founded makes every emotion suspect, makes it impossible to know whether what flowed between two people was honest feeling or pity or pragmatism." In this instance, it is used in the context of race, but could easily be applied to other power structures.

Lefty Loosey

A young girl and a mother came in.  They asked if I had anything with just Taylor Lautner and not the rest of the Twilight cast.  "No, we don't," I answered.  And then the young girl and I talked about how cute Lautner is.
This actually happens a lot.  Someone will come in asking for something, and it'll occur to me that "Oh, hey, we should sell that." 
I also broke one of the rules about work and called Dan.  Dan hates texting, which I really don't understand.  I don't text people I know who can't get texts or have to pay for them, but neither of these is true with Dan.
"I didn't think you were going to call my bluff," he said on the phone. 
"Yeah, well, I'm not suppose to be doing this.  If I have to put this down for a moment, that's why." 
Dan went into one of rants about why texting is a terrible medium for communication.  He carried on for a bit, complaining about how you can't get the timber of someone's voice. 
He brought up some good points, but the thing that hung in the back of my mind as he was talking was how much of my communication is written.  I'm a writer, so, duh, of course my communication often takes place in written form.  But even disregarding that, I spend a lot of time writing to people.  Obviously, I write on this blog.  I write emails and keep correspondences up with several friends (Ashley, Robert, Josie, Caryn and Jennifer as of right now.)  I even use instant messaging to talk to people, particularly Christine.  And then I texted about twenty-five people within the last week.  If I could only use my voice to communicate, I'd be cut off from a lot more people.  And I would miss them.  (And in some cases, would have trouble getting things done, since some of those communications are work-related and not just making small chat about lip piercings, made-up words, and homework.)  I didn't really get to making this argument back to him. 
A couple of customers kept asking me questions (which I didn't mind, because that's what I'm there for, dur.)  This ticked Dan off, and he hung up on me, which of course ticked me off.
I know that I explained where I was and how I was breaking the rules for him, I thought to myself.  But then I decided to carry on.  I can't let this kind of stuff bother me.  I've clearly got a full plate of drama.
Later on in the evening, a woman was asking me about a particular model we had out for people to try out.  It runs on batteries, and I noticed a small amount of liquid around that area.  My breath sort of held.  It looked like pop, but maybe I was wrong.  I told her it just needed new batteries. 
It took me a few minutes to take off the lid, just because it didn't adhere to the whole "righty tighty, lefty loosey" concept.  But even as I was trying to work it off, more liquid was coming out and all I could think was "Eww."
Midway through my battery incident, I turned around, an older woman was standing there.  I had one of those scare moments, but she just had a question. 
I finally opened it up, and indeed, there was a nasty oil over everything.  Great.  Someone had left these batteries in here so long they leaked out.  I picked them each out and discovered only one of them was spilling out, which I guess I should have been grateful for.  I picked up the two good ones and threw them into the recycling batteries bin.  I went to the back to get papertowel and lifted the bad, leaky battery.  And then used more paper towel to clean the rest of the mess up. 
Then I nearly face palmed over how stupid I was.  I was treating this like what happened when batteries exploded with white Manganese.  This wasn't that, and maybe I was doing something unsafe or unsanitary. 
I wasn't sure what to do then.  Who among my friends would possibly know what to do?  And then I realized the only answer: Dan. 
So I texted Dan, even though I know he hates texting.  I asked him what to do.  And then I waited.  About a half and hour later he texted me back, recommending baking soda.  Oh, bloody hell, I thought.  We can't even get enough room for our stock.  I sure as hell don't have baking soda, and of course, I'm working alone, so I can't even leave to try to find some nearby.
Maybe this is like one of those things where I can substitute something, like in baking.  So I texted him back asking if there was something else I could use.  He told me no.  Frak. 
So I ended up just doing what I had done and then leaving the model out for an extra half an hour to make sure it dried out.  And then I put new batteries in it and it worked, no problem. 
Speaking of batteries, this woman came in and demanded that I sell her batteries.  We don't sell batteries, but we use them in our models.  And we have gone weeks without them, because the boss hasn't purchased any.  So I didn't sell her any, and boy, did she let me know how much she disapproved of that.  A part of me felt like I should just sell her the batteries for an ungodly sum and pocket the money, but that would be dishonest. 
I've been closing a lot at work lately.  I think I would prefer to open, just because it involves less work.  I also wonder if my brain's just too tired to make things work, because after a shift of six or seven hours, it feels like I'm moving really slowly and in that sluggish way that signifies nothing good.  
It's also so cold where I work.  We're suppose to have the door open, and I try to keep it open for as long as possible.  Even after I put on a sweater I find myself shivering.  The good and bad thing about shutting the door is I think it makes some people think we're closed even though the lights are clearly on.