That is something that my boss said a couple of weeks ago while we were in a meeting together. His comment was directed at someone who made a snide remark about how many cookies he ate at lunch. My boss wasn't hoarding all of the cookies to himself, on the contrary, he was passing the tray around to everyone, and most people took one, he took more than one. Who cares. Apparently, some people do care about this sort of thing. I don't know why, I have some theories, but I really don't know. I've never really come out and asked anyone why they care so much about what other people are doing, in particular when it has no impact on their life whatsoever. I am really glad that my boss said that though, I think it is the most enlightening statement ever. The reason I say this is because I wish I had thought of it myself about a year ago.
I know my neighbors are bigots. I don't know why they are, I suppose it has something to do with the way their were raised, or their sense of entitlement. I don't like our neighbors, and I never have. But I have always been polite to them. I overlooked some of the off color comments they made and chalked it up to them being stupid. I have a fairly low tolerance for stupidity though, so one day I couldn't look beyond their judgment any longer. One day our neighbor posted on Facebook that he was in line at McDonald's and in front of him was an overweight woman who ordered a fruit and yogurt parfait, a side salad with ranch dressing a small fry and a diet coke. Now, having done Weight Watchers myself for numerous years, this would be a perfectly acceptable meal on that program, and in reality, it isn'a horrible meal. I would not eat it because I haven't had McDonald's food in over 13 years, but that is just me, I don't really care what anyone else does. But he goes on to rant and rave about how disgusting this woman was and how it is no wonder she is so overweight. BTW, my neighbor ordered some high fat burger meal and super sized it, but of course he is small and thin, so it's ok for him to order crap, but for anyone else, it is wrong. The disgustingly negative comments started pouring in. I was outraged. I couldn't believe that not only did my neighbor think this way, but that he had the balls to post it online for the whole world to see what a douche bag he was and his friends all agreed with him. One woman went so far as to say she probably goes home and eats a stick of butter for dinner. That is when I lost it. I told the guy and all of his small minded friends off. But it didn't occur to me at the time to tell him that it is none of his fucking business what she was eating.
This really hit home for me because it has happened to me before, almost exactly. When I was 19 years old I was really overweight due to a medication that I was perscribed, but I was doing something about it. I had gone to my doctor and changed medications and I joined a gym and started exercising and eating extremely healthy. One day my friend asked me to go to dinner with her and her cheap boyfriend. I thought we would go to a normal restaurant and sit down and have a real meal. No, cheap boyfriend wanted to go to Wendy's. I knew this was a bad decision all around, but I wanted to hang out with my friend. I went and got the salad bar and only had salad, no dressing (I can still eat a salad with no dressing). There were a bunch of kids younger than us, and they were loudly making fun of my weight. It hurt really badly. It made me cry. Then it enraged me to the point where on our way out the door I dumped my tray of food on their laps. It made me feel better for a short while, but I will never forget that day, and I will never forget how my neighbor thinks about overweight people.
The same neighbors have something against the nice Cuban family that moved in up the street from us. Now, I think this comes down to pure racism, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they are just jealous that these people could afford to buy the most expensive house in the neighborhood (and it is a gorgeous house!) Our neighbors tried to tell us at a party we attended once that the Cuban family paid $375,000 for their house. I knew this was not true, because we had only purchased our home a year before and our Realtor showed us the comps. They paid roughly $320,000 for the house, but again why is this anyone's business. We needed to know for legitimate reasons, but knowing what they paid for their house didn't have any bearing on how I felt about them as people. I didn't even know them! How could I make a judgment about someone I had never met?? And it really blew my mind how many people in our neighborhood hate this Cuban family, for no other reason than they could afford to buy a really nice house. What the fuck! Part of me really thinks that these bigot neighbors of mine really don't like them because they have nice tans. If ever given the opportunity again, now I know what to say to people like this: It's none of your fucking business.
This whole thing just pisses me off. I hate bigots and I hate closed minded people. But now at least I have something to say in response to someone's stupid comment. I really think before judging someone or a situation people should really think, is this having any sort of impact on my life at all. If not, then it is none of your fucking business.
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