“…no, really. I’m not.”

Ah, but the complexities of ignorance do prevail.

So we hired a kid. Nothing unusual there. Her first job, parental control, seventeen and in the 9th grade-you recognize the drill. I am convinced that troubled and deviant kids are God’s way of speaking to my inner ear. “Dee. Hear me now. Who, exactly, were YOU at 16?’ I always assign these kids a 50/50 chance. Fifty percent of them are the perfect blank canvas, fifty percent spin out into oblivion. This girl, was in neither category…

I suppose a few alarm bells rang out in me when both parents dropped her off on the first day of her first job. Yes, I DID give her my standard army issue speech about hiring HER and not her parents. Too many weird and bizarre experiences with parents in my history have forced me to incorporate this line into my hiring dialogue.

Despite my internal notifications, Ie; paying way too much attention to her hair with her right hand and leaning on the counter while listening to our instruction, I left for the night.

Flag, flag, flag.

Flag alerts compel me to phone the store later that night. “Hey, Benji. How’s the new girl doing?”

“Um…well, Dee, I don’t think she’s for us.”

“Really, Ben? Why?”

 So my new assistant who, by the way, just turned 19 last month, proceeds to clue me in.

“I thanked a group of people for coming in, (an important part of our customer service repertoire is thanking folks whether they purchase something or not) and I told [so and so] that we have to exit greet people as part of our job.”

“Ok, Ben. Then what happened?”

“Well, she said that she wasn’t gonna talk to those people. I asked her why because I thought they might have been rude to her or something. She said; ” I don’t like black people. They smell and have greasy hair and they don’t take care of themselves.”

Obviously, I was flabbergasted. How does a 17 year old child living in THIS EFFING CENTURY insouciantly make a statement like that?

I have encountered many people during my 20+ years here in the South that have blown my mind. My first mgr at KCI said he hated gay people. His wife used racial epithets often. I was crushed. But those episodes of idiocy occured 14 years ago. I get that racism is alive and well in this country, especially in the South, but is it spoken out loud with such impunity? Seriously? I thought (wrongly) that cowardly haters kept their mouths shut.

I phoned her parents. (Rule #3-never talk to the parents. But in this case I made an exception). I explained to the Mom why her daughter was starting and ending a job on the same day. She was confused. “But Miss Dee, we’re not racial.”

You’re not WHAT? You’re not racial? Geez, lady. You’re not literate, either.

I had to, I just HAD TO speak with the daughter. “You came in to the store with your best friend the other day to finalize your paperwork. Her grandparents drove y’all up here. Your best friend is black. Please tell me how you think she’d feel knowing what you said tonight.”

“I don’t know, Dee. I guess she would be hurt. But I’m NOT racial.”

There you have it. Those folks are not racial. You heard it here.

It blows my mind to hear this shit STILL. It’s twenty-0-nine people! WTF?

If there is a silver lining in all of this, it’s Benji. He’s only two years older than the; “I’m not racial,” person and he has values and guts that speak to him through injustice. I’m proud of him for feeling uncomfortable. I’m proud of him for growing up in a county (yes, county) that has more than its share of ignorant philosophies and accepting that we all live on this planet together-no better, no worse. He understands equality.

Our company does too. We do not discriminate. Our clever HR folks even snuck the ‘sexual orientation’ clause into our policy. God knows, I’ve heard plenty of gay-hating lingo over the years. Good to know that we work for a company that stands up, and rightly so.

As for so-and-so, the ex-employee… I hope she can one day realize that we are ALL racial, but racists are a dying breed. There is no ‘cool-factor’ involved with blatant ignorance. Not now, not ever.

I’m not certain today, if Gracie is still Earth bound. I do know that she has been straddling the line between here and gone. It’s been hard, as it has always been hard, for me to wrap my mind around death. Death has shown up as several characters in the play of my life. The first of significance was our family dog, Sheba. After that, I remember little of the human or animal departures, aside from flashes in my mind. Until 1990. My friend Ed.

 Death seems to come so fast and furious now. Chalk it up to my aging human form. My Godfather died last month. Len and Rod were partners for almost as long as I’ve been aboard planet Earth. Now he’s gone. Death kills the living, I believe. It kills a piece of me every time.

Gracie, though. I fancied her invincible. She kicked my ass, knocked me down and broke into my soul. I’m not sure if I hate her for that. I’m not sure about love at all, really. I can’t decide why love makes sense. I hate this suffocating, choking state I’m in. Would I trade the loving for the hurting? I can’t answer that just yet.

All I know is that I can’t save Gracie, or her Mom. And this reality angers me into shutting it all down…

Been awhile since I’ve written, eh?

Things (What, exactly, are things?) have been going so very well and I haven’t wanted to jinx them with some melancholy post that usually shows up in my blog.

Work is good. New staff for the new year has carried in their pockets renewed hope.

Family is great. Sis and nieces came for a visit over Christmas, Helen has placed another sibling in the doghouse and I’ve made a connection with my brand new sister in law.

Friends are wonderful. Meeting up with old pals next week, reconnecting with long lost school mates via Facebook and keeping myself aligned with the equilibrium of the necessary rules of such relationships.

Girls are…Girls are…well, girls still haven’t figured much into my daily schemes.

But all in all, I’ll not trade any of my plusses for the inevitable minus.

Girls will simply have to wait their turn…