a little rant...a little rave

did my parents make the wrong choice when i was smacked upside the head when we were in a public place (namely, a shoe store...such as the one where i work) and left my crap all over the floor? did they make a mistake by refusing to buy me those shoes that i threw a complete, embarrassing, and immature temper tantrum over? am i in the minority here?

of course i don't mean literal, human feces. i mean, say, shoes that would have taken .02 seconds to put back in the box, or just boxes in general, with the shoes three aisles over, and neither shoe nor box is even in the right aisle. or when they shove it all under a bench to...hide it? from us? or other customers? newsflash dumdum, a bench isn't gonna do it. especially since we run through every couple hours and pick that stuff up because it's a) in the way, and b) 98.6% of the time, we can pretty much bet that you're never coming back for it anyway.

for that matter, what is it about the human mind that thinks, 'oh this person left a mess, therefore it's ok if i leave everything i've looked at today on the floor for the associate to pick up; after all, isn't that what they're paid for?'
let me answer that question for you, mister. no. nowhere in my job description does it list 'personal maid' as a duty.

i can maybe understand if you're a single mom, have 5 kids running around, and are truly trying your hardest. but when you sit there and watch your kids terrorize the place, drive every single other customer to the brink of strangling the little snot that you get to take home with you (hopefully...or maybe secretly you're thinking about dropping him by the dumpster to be someone else's problem too. like the rest of us) with nothing more than a benign, 'honey don't do that.'
yeah. like that would stop me. i bet every victim of homicide in the world escaped with their lives with that one. boy, you really know how to command respect. i know that's a voice i would listen to. i'd be scared of being chained to my bedroom wall for the rest of all eternity with a threat like that: on no! please don't say please! anything but that! that little statement right there gives me all the motivation i need to quit being the little shit that you raised me to be. woo. you showed me!

the absolute worst? when you watch your child deliberately treat me like i'm...well, i don't even know what; certainly not even your maid, butler, servant, or even freaking robot deserves to be treated like this. i'm not just spouting steam here. true story:

i'm walking down the kids aisle, picking up shoes, finding where they're supposed to go, and putting them away, right behind this little girl who cannot be any older than, like, 3. she's starting out the whole 'spoiled brat' thing real young. she turns around at one point, sees me picking up everything she has thrown helter-skelter all over the place: random empty spots on the shelves, boxes that already have both shoes in them, under the benches (popular spot, that one), or just all over the floor. wherever the eff she felt like it. and i see on her face this registration of, 'oh wow...she's picking up EVERYTHING! MWUHAHAHA!' and she experimently--i make up new words, bear with me here--throws one on the floor, right in front of me.

i do the thing i do with my dog. i pick it up, staring her down the entire time, put it away and give her that do-it-again-i-dare-you look.
*note* this woman should be ashamed that her daughter is not as well trained as my dog. my dog that was a lost cause to the professional trainer i paid hundreds of bucks to help me out with. mother of the year award goes to you, ma'am. congrats. your daughter's a peach. a babysitter's dream.
this girl looks at me, smiles like, 'i'm onto you, servant girl. you have to do everything i say.' even though this chick can't even talk yet. she looks over at this bench where her mom has this stack of shoes that she's (hopefully) planning on buying sitting. she sits down. smooths out her skirt. a pink sparkly one, which tells you everything you need to know about how this girl is practically being bred to be high maintenance. looks at me. smiles. pushes the stack over.
what else can i do? i stand up, and go to walk away. no way am i giving this mini-cow the satisfaction of being her servant-girl. i'm not paid enough for that. six figures wouldn't be enough for me to sacrifice that kind of dignity for a three-year-old snot.
but wait. something stops me. the mom...is laughing. direct quote: 'oh, haha! isn't she such a brat??' only, her voice is dripping with adoration, so you know she means, 'oh, haha! look at her, isn't she cute? now pick up her stuff, obviously she tipped it over.'
sometimes, i can't contain the attitude, even though i know i need to curb it. i smile, just as sickenly sweet as her, and go, 'yupp, haha! she sure is!' and walk away.

mom picked the stack up--nothing else, mind. but i'll take it where i can get it. little girl left me alone. i guess i ruined her fun. so i guess that was a win (ish) for me.

the point is. when did it become ok to do stuff like that? your child will not be hurt in the long run by learning how to pick up after themselves, NOT hide the other customers' shoes, throw umbrellas at me, demand stickers, accuse me of stealing my own merchandise because i'm wearing shoes that i bought there, tell me i look like her grandma who's dead, ask me for hugs and kisses (hello? not even legal!), tell me how i'm doing my job wrong, or propose to me.

ok so that last one was actually cute and made my entire day. but the rest. how will your child be harmed by being oh, i don't know...human? civil? likable? not unto the devil himself?

bottom line kids: i realize my job is to pick up the store to an extent, but it is not your job to deliberately terrorize me. bottom line parents: i know you weren't raised that way, so why are you raising your children that way? there's no way you enjoy being in my shoes (get it? shoes? i work in a shoe store? :] ) in your own home. so easy way. tell them no. if they don't live them, give them a consequence they don't like: take them home without their freaking shoes. just once, and i promise they'll be good.
no. big. deal.

life would be better for everyone involved.
but hey, who wants better, easier, more civilized, kinder? it is the age of entitlement, after all.

perspective

what if everything we've been conditioned to believe is wrong?

what if our perspective of darkness changed, and instead of it being something that creepers and scaries hid in, it was something beautiful, something to be embraced, something we ourselves could hide in--not for frightening, or less-than-honest intentions, but for protection? maybe the dark could be the silk we called our childhood blankie, we could run to it for comfort, hide our emotions and deepest hurts in it, hide the truths about ourselves we didn't want anybody to know.

what if instead of craving light, we perceived it as something to shy away from? it's impossible to hide away from your nightmares in the light. there's no masking scars and pain and the ugliness that comes with human life. in the light everyone can see you for who, or what you are. in the light, there are no secrets. you do not see mere shadows, as you do in dark, of what might be there, but you see in actuality the demons that lay at the end of your bed or in your closet or down the stairs.

as long as we're dissecting perspective, what if dark was really light? what if everything we've been taught about wrong and right, good and evil, bright and colorless, light and dark is wrong? dark could be getting the raw end of the deal; be the misunderstood brother. maybe light is the gloating sibling who nobody sees wrong in and really causes all the trouble that life brings.
maybe darkness is what we should find comfort in, hiding in the woods, climbing into bed, having the power unexpectedly go out. should those be the things we look forward to, instead of waking up to sunshine, nightlights and the comfort of always having a lightswitch to turn to in times of need?
isn't it possible that 'wrong' could be right, 'evil' could be good, 'dark' could be light, and we just don't know it--we're kept in the dark--because of what storybooks and our grandmothers have always told us?

really, what's to be afraid of in the dark? all there is to hide in the shadows is the unknown. but the unknown does not become known by shining a flashlight on it. you can just as easily be ambushed in broad daylight, just as easily be stabbed in the back by a good friend, be blindsided by a life-changing--or ending--accident, and just as easily suffer a broken heart on a beautiful day.

light doesn't change anything. it doesn't ease the pain, it doesn't help anybody by showing off your hurts and scars and flaws, it doesn't comfort you when all you want is to curl in a ball and hide.

darkness comes with beauty; stars and the moon, secrecy and mystery, the ability to decide for yourself who you want to be, because no one there is to see something different and tell you it's wrong. true, unpleasantries can be hiding in the shadows, but it could be better to not always know something terrible was coming and remain blissfully unaware for as long as possible, sometimes not seeing what's coming makes it painless, and ensures that you cannot blame yourself for those i-should-have-seen-it-coming moments.

so. the question remains. what would change of we saw things differently? what if what we were taught to believe, conditioned to perceive, and liked to believe was wrong?

should we continue fearing the dark, or, in reverse, fear the light?