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mallorys_cameraThe assholes are the ones you remember.
I wonder why that is?
For example, yesterday.
I tromped about, mostly encountering doorbells that echoed into empty hallways or folks who begrudgingly gave me 10 minutes of their time.
But one woman kept offering me coffee and pastries. One man wanted to give me five pounds of tomatoes from his garden. Another woman invited me to join her birthday celebration: “When you get to be my age, it’s just another day. But I’m grilling burgers.”
Those aren’t the people I remember, though.
No, I remember the house where the woman stared coldly at me and said, “A man came here and did this already.”
“Really?” I said. “Huh. I wonder why you’re on my list. In the last few days?”
“A couple of months ago.”
I knew she was lying because the National Counting Project was not doing door-to-door a couple of months ago. But I wasn’t about to call her on it. That’s not in the job description.
“Huh. Well, I can leave you this Notice of Visit with your code, and maybe you can look it up, see where the irregularity is—“
“Fine.”
The National Counting Project identifies every address with a complicated alphanumeric designator. It takes a couple of minutes to page through the various scripted screens to arrive at that designator. It takes another couple of minutes to write the required note: Respondent says she was already enumerated “a couple of months ago"—
The inside door opened and another woman came out, older and harder looking than the first.
“Why are you still standing here? We told you: We don’t want the bullshit you’re selling. Get out of here. Go Trump!”
Go Trump?
Huh! Did she really think the National Counting Project was something invented by Obama-worshipping leftists?
Her venom was stunning.
I wished I were on better terms with God, so I could hit God up for a favor: Could you smite this bitch with a painful form of rectal cancer, pretty please?
But I got out.
###
This was actually my second incredibly unpleasant encounter of the day. The first had occurred back at those awful, squalid white cottages where the NCP had dispatched me for follow-up.
Sidebar: I did find out what the cottages were from a pleasant resident. Apparently, they were built to house FDR’s Secret Service retinue back in World War II. And have not been renovated since.
The residents recognized me.
“Look! We have our own personal National Counting Project taker,” drawled a man I had talked to the day before. (When I got to the part of the NCP script that asks about race, he said, “Put down ‘Teutonic.’”)
“Hi!” I said, compressing as much canned delight as I could into that monosyllable. “Hi! I’m looking for [unit number goes here.] I can’t seem to find it…”
“Oh, he ain’t here—“
“He’s probably out looking for crack,” said the Teutonic man.
“Nah. He got arrested yesterday—“
The unit next door to Crack Boy was also on my list.
My knock was answered by a woman who had all the signs of tardive dyskinesia. Amazingly, she agreed to do the survey but got more and more agitated as the interview progressed. When we got to the question that reads, Are you White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian etcetera, etcetera, she snarled, “Kind of fuckin’ question is that? I’m white, and I’m proud.” She began to chant: “White lives matter! White lives matter!”
“Well, that’s it!” I said. “The survey is complete! Thank you for your time and courtesy!”
“Wait a minute! How I know you ain’t a scammer? How I know you ain’t scamming me? Give me a receipt!”
“I don’t have any receipts—“
“I want a receipt!” she screamed. And proceeded to advance into my personal no-fly zone with her hands poised in an attempt to throttle me.
I skipped toward my car while she lurched toward me, staggering like Frankenstein’s monster with her hands in the air, bellowing, “I want a receipt! I want a receipt!”
I didn’t perceive myself as being in any actual danger.
It was just so fuckin’ sad.
###
In the evening, someone on the DW flist decided to berate me for my moral repugnance in refusing to be polarized over Jacob Blake.
This is someone who apparently has never had to file a restraining order.
Well, I have had to file a restraining order.
And I’ll be goddamned if some asshole is going to lecture me about moral equivalence and restraining orders.
The reason you file a restraining order is because you’re deeply, deeply afraid that someone is going to do you grievous physical harm.
“Grievous physical harm” includes rape and, yes, murder.
And if that someone decides to ignore the restraining order, and something happens to that someone while he’s ignoring that restraining order—well. The use of excessive force is always wrong, but the situation is—shall we say—nuanced.
###
Anyway, I ended up doing a purge of the flists in the parallel LJ/DW universes. (I always think of the parallel LJ/DW universes as the online diary equivalent of the Marvel/DC comics universes!)
Thing is I read a lot of journals written by people whose political opinions I do not agree with.
There is a vetting process: I like journals that are well written, and there must be a mutual accordance of good faith.
If someone writes something that I strongly disagree with, and I care about that person—because, if you read someone’s inner thoughts over a number of years, how can you not end up caring about them?—I will try to engage them. Otherwise? No. It’s interesting to me to have multiple windows onto the world, and I always remember that in 25 or 50 or 100 years time, all the issues that seem so polarizing now will be as dust.
Bullies can just go fuck themselves. Both the Trump-loving and progressive flavors.
I wonder why that is?
For example, yesterday.
I tromped about, mostly encountering doorbells that echoed into empty hallways or folks who begrudgingly gave me 10 minutes of their time.
But one woman kept offering me coffee and pastries. One man wanted to give me five pounds of tomatoes from his garden. Another woman invited me to join her birthday celebration: “When you get to be my age, it’s just another day. But I’m grilling burgers.”
Those aren’t the people I remember, though.
No, I remember the house where the woman stared coldly at me and said, “A man came here and did this already.”
“Really?” I said. “Huh. I wonder why you’re on my list. In the last few days?”
“A couple of months ago.”
I knew she was lying because the National Counting Project was not doing door-to-door a couple of months ago. But I wasn’t about to call her on it. That’s not in the job description.
“Huh. Well, I can leave you this Notice of Visit with your code, and maybe you can look it up, see where the irregularity is—“
“Fine.”
The National Counting Project identifies every address with a complicated alphanumeric designator. It takes a couple of minutes to page through the various scripted screens to arrive at that designator. It takes another couple of minutes to write the required note: Respondent says she was already enumerated “a couple of months ago"—
The inside door opened and another woman came out, older and harder looking than the first.
“Why are you still standing here? We told you: We don’t want the bullshit you’re selling. Get out of here. Go Trump!”
Go Trump?
Huh! Did she really think the National Counting Project was something invented by Obama-worshipping leftists?
Her venom was stunning.
I wished I were on better terms with God, so I could hit God up for a favor: Could you smite this bitch with a painful form of rectal cancer, pretty please?
But I got out.
###
This was actually my second incredibly unpleasant encounter of the day. The first had occurred back at those awful, squalid white cottages where the NCP had dispatched me for follow-up.
Sidebar: I did find out what the cottages were from a pleasant resident. Apparently, they were built to house FDR’s Secret Service retinue back in World War II. And have not been renovated since.
The residents recognized me.
“Look! We have our own personal National Counting Project taker,” drawled a man I had talked to the day before. (When I got to the part of the NCP script that asks about race, he said, “Put down ‘Teutonic.’”)
“Hi!” I said, compressing as much canned delight as I could into that monosyllable. “Hi! I’m looking for [unit number goes here.] I can’t seem to find it…”
“Oh, he ain’t here—“
“He’s probably out looking for crack,” said the Teutonic man.
“Nah. He got arrested yesterday—“
The unit next door to Crack Boy was also on my list.
My knock was answered by a woman who had all the signs of tardive dyskinesia. Amazingly, she agreed to do the survey but got more and more agitated as the interview progressed. When we got to the question that reads, Are you White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian etcetera, etcetera, she snarled, “Kind of fuckin’ question is that? I’m white, and I’m proud.” She began to chant: “White lives matter! White lives matter!”
“Well, that’s it!” I said. “The survey is complete! Thank you for your time and courtesy!”
“Wait a minute! How I know you ain’t a scammer? How I know you ain’t scamming me? Give me a receipt!”
“I don’t have any receipts—“
“I want a receipt!” she screamed. And proceeded to advance into my personal no-fly zone with her hands poised in an attempt to throttle me.
I skipped toward my car while she lurched toward me, staggering like Frankenstein’s monster with her hands in the air, bellowing, “I want a receipt! I want a receipt!”
I didn’t perceive myself as being in any actual danger.
It was just so fuckin’ sad.
###
In the evening, someone on the DW flist decided to berate me for my moral repugnance in refusing to be polarized over Jacob Blake.
This is someone who apparently has never had to file a restraining order.
Well, I have had to file a restraining order.
And I’ll be goddamned if some asshole is going to lecture me about moral equivalence and restraining orders.
The reason you file a restraining order is because you’re deeply, deeply afraid that someone is going to do you grievous physical harm.
“Grievous physical harm” includes rape and, yes, murder.
And if that someone decides to ignore the restraining order, and something happens to that someone while he’s ignoring that restraining order—well. The use of excessive force is always wrong, but the situation is—shall we say—nuanced.
###
Anyway, I ended up doing a purge of the flists in the parallel LJ/DW universes. (I always think of the parallel LJ/DW universes as the online diary equivalent of the Marvel/DC comics universes!)
Thing is I read a lot of journals written by people whose political opinions I do not agree with.
There is a vetting process: I like journals that are well written, and there must be a mutual accordance of good faith.
If someone writes something that I strongly disagree with, and I care about that person—because, if you read someone’s inner thoughts over a number of years, how can you not end up caring about them?—I will try to engage them. Otherwise? No. It’s interesting to me to have multiple windows onto the world, and I always remember that in 25 or 50 or 100 years time, all the issues that seem so polarizing now will be as dust.
Bullies can just go fuck themselves. Both the Trump-loving and progressive flavors.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-31 09:19 pm (UTC)And yeah, I absolutely hear you about restraining orders, and about bullies of all stripes. I have two posts I want to make, and the second is tangentially related (but you know how this goes--will I make that second post? We'll see. I'm off to make the first one now.)
no subject
Date: 2020-09-01 01:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-01 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-01 07:06 am (UTC)I salute your valour and tact.
As for bullies, yes, fuck 'em. Always and everyways. Sick of them.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-01 01:28 pm (UTC)But they are assholes.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-01 11:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-01 01:26 pm (UTC)