#caffeine rant

"The hat is customizable," he said, struggling with the velcro patch on the front. "If I need it, I have an ICE one too. I pick based off the business i walk into."

"Customizable is an important hat descriptor," I said. "what can I get you?"

"You wouldn't believe how offended people get these days," he said. "And I'm supposed to do something about it if you're offended? You chose to be offended!"

"We all have hundreds of thousands of decisions everyday," I said. I thickened my accent. "That's what my stepdad always said. But I can make one easier - we have a delicious Ethiopian roast available."

"Like if I told you you have a bull ring," he said, "because bulls have rings in their noses. Is that offensive?"

I laughed. "I've heard that before."

"It's a joke, but people get offended. Maybe you're offended."

I looked at him. I smiled. "You aren't trying to offend me though, right?"

Of course he was. I was being friendly and the friendlier I was, the faster he switched topics. He was saying anything inflammatory he could think of to see if I'd take the bait. After about 20 minutes of my redirecting and deescalating, he settled into a more normal interaction. He took up too much of my time showing me a product I'd feigned mild interest in to get him to stop talking about getting accused of inappropriate behavior at work. When we finally disengaged, he spent 10 minutes trying to catch my eye again. When he failed, he left.

There's this new breed of customer who insists on trying to incite political conversation through their clothing and, when that doesnt work, their snide little comments. If I owned my own business, maybe I would have given the guy the fight he wanted. But I work for a corporation and I love paying my bills so I deescalated.

I sincerely hope those authors who have been told their story is “already written” know that I am there, lurking in the shadows behind them, and cheering them on. I am literally under their beds with confetti, ready to celebrate every single late night plotting session and every early morning character sheet. I am sneaking into their classes/places of employment with a giant party hat, ready to launch into an excited jig every time a new idea for their story comes to them.

I am summoning eldritch gods in their name to grant them as much love, success and joy as humanly and inhumanly possible. I am hoarding their books and stories like the dragons of yore because they are the greatest treasures I can fathom.

Responsibility, to me, refers to tasks that you are responsible for managing until such a time as they would be considered complete.

Responsibility, to some, might mean that they will bear the consequences for the actions of others. Like how a child’s actions reflect on a parent—it’s the parents job to apologize for and correct that behavior.

In that vein

It’s not offensive when someone does not want to use the same pronouns as you. It in no way devalues how you self-identify when they express their particular discomfort with binary/gendered pronouns.

Your pronouns do not have the same context for them as they do for you.

As such, not using their preferred pronouns is basically telling them that you have no wish to communicate with them equally. You are saying that you will only talk to them if they use your language, your context, and your vocabulary.

The idea that you need to give something up to be a helper makes me angry. De-prioritizing your health and safety in an attempt to keep someone else afloat makes me furious. Someone telling you that you “don’t really care” because you wouldn’t compromise on what you want/need makes me incandescently enraged.