With no plans to go anywhere or do anything outside the unit this weekend, plans changed when I ran out of a floss color.
Checking with the local craft store — make sure they had the color in stock so as to not waste a trip, color me a bit peeved upon arriving to find they were out, but I quickly reverted to my philosophy that there is a cosmic reason for everything.
The next nearest craft store was 10 miles away, but inasmuch as I didn’t want to be out and about in the first place, I thought to go back to the complex, order the floss online. But then, headed towards the return freeway entrance, I found myself hanging a right in the other direction to get the floss color quicker.
In and out of that craft store in record time, floss in hand, I headed out and ran into a blockade that looked like something to explore.
It was a farmer’s market with all kinds of produce and vendors, not to mention every kind of street food and sweet stands imaginable that I cannot eat.
It was at that moment I realized that most everything fun we do is based on food, and how these events are so not worth attending for us that can’t indulge ourselves.
EXCEPT, it felt semi-normal to feel sun on my masked face, listen to Bluegrass music.
An interesting thing I learned at the craft store … I don’t know if this is done to everyone, in all areas, or if it’s only when people of color present $20, $50, or $100 bills, but it makes me feel uneasy, somewhat like a criminal when the cashier holds the bill up to the light, checking to see if it’s counterfeit or legit.
At the craft store, they now have some kind of machine to denote legit from counterfeit and, as it is with most new machines, the cashier had trouble getting it to work. I knew it was a legit bill I’d given the cashier, he indicated he knew it was legit as well as he struggled to get the machine to verify, so I didn't think he was checking because he felt I was a criminal.
The machine did eventually do what it was intended to do but, in the interim, I said to the cashier, "Why don’t you do like I’ve seen others do? They hold it up to the light. I don’t know what they’re looking for, or if they just pretend to be looking for something".
The cashier said, "What they’re looking for is the same president on both sides of the bill, and sometimes they can tell when a $10 bill is doctored to look like a $50".
Interesting and good to know just in case someone tries to pass counterfeit on to me.
Speaking of people of color being viewed as criminals …. It’s Black History Month. We’re supposed to be on vacation for 28 days from having to deal with BLM stuff, but there they are in Minneapolis having to protest yet another no-knock warrant killing, and then there’s the situation of Chase Bank denying an account to a Black doctor presenting them with a $16,000 check — even after she presented proper ID, a business card and the medical center she was employed at verifying her employment.
Can we not be subjected to further murders and indignities for the mere twenty-three days remaining?
Is that too much to ask?
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