And all the rest

I think I can stop saying that I'm still getting settled. People are starting to look at me funny when I say that I've been here 7 months. But - I'm still getting settled. That was the last time. Or the penultimate or maybe the before-the-penultimate (I don't know what that's called) time.

I enrolled my daughter in preschool last September. She loves it. For the whole three hours she is in school. And that schedule will be the same for kindergarten. I guess that's to encourage people to keep the kids in daycare. Or at home, what do they care? Lighten up the government expenses. I don't know. I see conspiracies everywhere around here. I haven't enrolled her in kindergarten just yet because of the slight panic attack feelings I get. I just know it's going to be a big to-do. I like things simple, and this whole school process is anything but. Paperwork and appointments and meetings and paperwork and headaches. If I could pay someone, let's say, $500 to take care of the enrollment for me, I'd do it. I don't have the money, but I've got spare kidneys and liver lobes.


There's no transition from that summary of what I've been doing up until now to what's really on my mind, but I keep thinking of what my husband and I were talking about last night. He had gone to a clinic for the low income population for the third time. This time he was actually seen; however, I asked why he didn't complain. He told me because black men don't complain in public. The last time he had seen black men complain the police were involved. He admitted that was in Mississippi but that is  always in the back of his mind.

That sounded alarming to me. What? I feel dizzy thinking about it. He has told me before in Mississippi of how, at his job, if a black man who was a customer complained, the police were called and that complainer was taken away. Yet, if, say, a white woman complained, nothing would be done. Even if that woman was verbally abusive and the police were called, the police would only politely ask her to stop.

So, having seen something like this over and over. My husband would not complain even when treated badly because he felt that he would be treated like a criminal instead of a customer with a complaint. It's as if we're all living in different universes. Alternate realities, my husband would call them.

I feel that if I am a customer, then I have a right to tell that business when it needs to step up. I've bought your service/product/swill now let me tell you how to keep me doing so. And on top of that, if a business is dealing in incompentence or shady practices, I feel that it's my duty to correct them. For the next customer. My husband feels it's every person for himself. His mindset is that it would far too much trouble to even try when he could just get himself into hot water and then nothing be done about his complaint. I wouldn't advise my husband to act as I would, though (Just like my college communications professor telling me that all I'd have to do to get a check cashed at a bank that wasn't mine was wear a suit. Ain't that just the stupidest. And the fact that you, professor, have Doctor in front of your name and are, in fact, a middle-class white male had nothing to do with this? I've been told that my very own bank couldn't cash my check because I couldn't cover the amount with money in my checking account. So you're saying I have to already have the $300 to cash this check for $300? Makes sense to me.).

Is the situation different in California? I know the being treated different because of economic status definitely is not different, don't tell me it is. But- Is there differences based on "race"? I guess we'll soon find out.