Ironic Isn’t It?

Never made it to Starbucks on Tuesday or to Wal-Mart. In fact, I got comfortable and never made it out of the unit.

I was planning to head out today, but it looks so gloomy and rain is predicted, so I’ve opted to plan for tomorrow.

The stress fractured foot not feeling too terribly awful, the body in need of a bit of exercise, the plan for tomorrow is to take Mage’s advice and head for J.C. Penney’s for those thermals, where I expect to kill two birds with one stone because Penney’s is located in Victoria Gardens where there’s plenty of walking area and a Starbucks.

Before the foot injury, I’d registered for the virtual Run Like a Diva 5K, to be completed on or before December 31. With not much time left to squeeze it in, I figured tomorrow is a good day to give it a go and Victoria Gardens a good place to try for 3.12 miles.

Inasmuch as a virtual is not an officially timed race, it can be completed in increments. So if the foot doesn’t allow for the entire 3.12, I’ll go as far as I can and get the remaining miles in before the 31^st.

Inasmuch as I have to remember to take a shopping bag with me, thought I’d wear the little backpack race organizers sent in the mail.

That’s where the irony comes in because, whereas in the past shops and stores posted notices “No bags allowed”, now we’re encouraged to bring a bag with us.

I suppose the “no bags allowed” policy was a theft prevention measure, but how does that jibe with the new “bags encouraged” policy? Is the thinking no longer items can be slipped into bags and customers walk out without paying? Or is the money being made on 10 cent bags offsetting whatever losses are incurred?

Either way, having to remember to take bags with me brings back the times it wasn't allowed, like the time I walked into a market with a rather large tote carrying hair products. Contents not being part of the store’s inventory, I figured it safe not to leave the bag at a check stand, but noooo. I was immediately called out and embarrassed by the security guard rather loudly yelling that I couldn’t bring that in.

“It’s just hair products”, said I.

“I don’t care what it is”, he replied and I was made to leave on the floor in a location behind an unmanned counter where anyone could have picked it up, walked out, and the store would not have not accepted responsibility.

Then there was the time I’d gone shopping on my lunch hour at a well-known boutique where I purchased all my work suits, blouses, blazers, and held an account.

When I walked in, I observed the store had employed a security guard. He’d been leaning nonchalantly against the wall, but snapped to attention when he saw me.

He couldn’t possibly have seen the rather large tote I was carrying as a purse. All he saw was a Black woman and was immediately on guard.

He didn’t even ask me to check the tote. He just dead eyed me and kept his eyes on me, with a frown, the entire time I shopped. I remember a white linen skirt I wasn’t sure would fit. I wanted to try it on, but was too intimidated by the security guard mad dogging me (starring as though crazy, threatening glance), expecting to catch me stealing, to risk what would happen if I took it into the changing room to try on.

That was the last time I shopped at the Wilshire Boulevard location.

I was a different me back in those days. I had “victim” written all over and allowed things to happen that, a few years later -- as I grew into my own, resulted in my asking to speak to the manager and writing letters of complaint to public relations departments, because I didn’t want what I’d experienced to happen to the next Black woman that came along.

Complaints were heard each and every time, responded to, employees hopefully learned lessons and once, after lodging a complaint re a disturbing incident with a cab driver, the police called to tell me the driver had been sent back to cab school.

Amazed was I that the cab company had referred the matter to the police AND that there was such a thing as cab school, where drivers are taught how to interact with the public.

I radiate confidence now, and these days -- with the ability to write facebook posts, with video, incidents are few and far between – not gone completely, just rare. However, remembering having been mad dogged and called out in the past, I was at first a little nervous about taking bags into shops and stores. Having now become comfortable with it, I just have to just remember to do so or pay the 10 cents per bag, which is not a lot of money but results in too many bags hanging around.