Why are you such a (insert derogatory curse word here)? It’s usually because I speak my mind.
When I was growing up, I got in trouble a lot for speaking the truth about what I saw around me. They say bluntness is a Saggitarian trait and while I don’t believe in astrology, blunt I am. Always have been and probably always will be, though the older I get, the more I temper it with tact. I call ‘em as I see ‘em and I WILL get in your face if I think you’re being an idiot.
I started Chancleta Dodgers to have some fun and also to post my Chancletasos (sandal slaps) to things, people or situations that bothered me. To say what I can’t say or that have no place on my other blogs. This is my venting space. You’re welcome to visit, read, rant yourself or just stay quiet. You are NOT welcome to call me derogatory names, demand I find Jesus or some such religious tripe or demean me as a woman. You can do that on your own ranting place, not mine. If I see those comments, I delete them. Period.
This is my space, keep it clean or GTFO and take your tracts with you on the way out.
I’m home working on this big pile of laundry, drinking iced coffee and working on my computer. While I’m folding clothes I’m watching random TV and this commercial comes on for Christian online dating. Ok. Fine. Then my ears perk up because they said in the commercial “Find God’s match for you!” Um. I don’t know about you but I really don’t think God has bought shares in an online dating service.
So these people are charging money and saying GOD is matching you. Um. No. God isn’t matching you up. The dating service is. If God isn’t the CEO, then he’s not matching you.
I’m annoyed.
Stupid.
Big time blasphemy punishing chancletasos to you pendejos. Are you even Christian at all? Because a Christian would know that taking the Lord’s name in vain is a sin. Lying about God is blasphemous at the very least.
I think they need a special bible-edition chancletaso.
Seriously WTF were you thinking when you took your four year old to see Contagion?
Yeah you, stupid parents in the row of seats just in front of me last night in Montebello.
There was an autopsy scene where they cut off someone’s HEAD and peeled back her SKIN!
There was a scene with a dead child that freaked out every adult in the theater and collective gasps and groans were heard, as well as crying.
Why didn’t you take the kid out of the theatre the moment things got intense? Why did you take him in the first place? It’s not the Smurfs which was playing in that same theatre by the way. It’s not a Disney movie.
Do you realize you’ve probably damaged your kid for life? At the very least traumatized him? I heard him crying and you didn’t take him home or comfort him. You didn’t dash out of the theatre, kid in your arms or soothe him. I heard you tell him to be quiet.
I get it. You wanted to see the movie. Ok. So there are these entities called babysitters, grandmothers, aunties… etc. You couldn’t find anyone? Then stay the fuck home!
What’s that you say? You didn’t KNOW it was so intense? Well, um then why, when you realized it was, did you not leave? Liars.
Selfish assholes. You should be much more than chancletaized. You shouldn’t be parents at all, but you are so I recommend parenting classes.
You know. The ones where everyone complains that I wrote it, while secretly wishing they had had the nerve to say it. Or where they comment anonymously and act self-righteously victimized. How the hell can they be anonymous and self-righteous at the same time? Oh the irony. Or where they use a false name and go on a Jesus rant where they “pray for me” because I happen to have feelings, convictions, thoughts in my head and have no problem voicing them. Or where I get slammed for being a traitor to my race because I dated say something negative about a fellow Latino/a. What race? The more I dig into my genealogy and ancestors, the more I see that my DNS is just one, big, melange soup of races as ARE WE ALL. We spring from the same primordial soup, people. Call it Adam and Eve, call it evolution – we all come from the same place. Um yeah. One of those posts where I rant.
I just came home from the market. I went with a purpose. I am doing a cheese tasting blog post for my cooking blog and needed some things for it. I had a gift card and my debit card and wanted to use what was on the gift card first, so rather than use the self-checkout as I usually do in order to avoid cashier nitwittery (totally stealing this word from the wondrous Miss Snark), I went to the regular checkout line. I spoke quite clearly and distinctly in English (I have no accent, unless you count Angeleno) and let the checker know that I’d be purchasing with two types of card. No problem. In fact, the CASHIER was excellent. My problem was with the bagger. She asked, with a heavy Spanish accent if I needed a shopping cart. I said, “No thank you and I don’t need plastic bags. I brought my own market bags.” She asks again, and once more, I politely say “no thank you.”
So then, (this is where my rant springs from) she asks me in SPANISH!!! Glare. I love speaking Spanish and I have no problem switching from English to Spanish if it is necessary or if it’s appropriate. In this case, it wasn’t either. She spoke English, she understood me and she heard me speaking at length to the checker. So, because I have brown hair and brown eyes, I’m stupid and don’t understand? Um…hello? What kind of crazed reverse racism is that?
Not being a shrinking violet, I called her on it. I said, “I think its inappropriate that you question me in Spanish because I answer in English on something that I clearly don’t want, said no to twice in English and have been speaking in English.” The cashier cringed and apologized. The bagger did not. Instead, she put my items in PLASTIC BAGS!!! GAH! So I spoke to her as one would a small child and not wanting to hold up the line, paid for my items, walked around to the other side and calmly took my things out of the plastic, put them into my cloth bags that she had cast to the side while explaining to her in ENGLISH how she needed to pay attention and that her customer service was poor as well as sloppy.
The market wasn’t even busy. I could understand frantic mistakes then. I’d even understand it if she was a new employee. She wasn’t. She had a manager’s tag on her shirt and she was around my age. I doubt my lecture to her will do any good or that my rant on Chancleta Dodgers will do anything other than let me get it out without screaming and scaring the neighbors.
Here’s the thing that gets to me. I’m fine with different languages and I don’t think we should be pigeonholed into speaking English-only. I do however, think that if you work in a place where someone is clearly speaking English and you know the language, then you should speak in your customer’s chosen language, not try to force them into speaking the language YOU are more comfortable with just because you’re lazy. And yes, its laziness.
I had friends over for dinner once from Brittany, France and most of them spoke no English and my French is high school basic. It was up to ME, as the hostess to make them feel comfortable and at ease. So I tried my best to speak their language, with them correcting me at every turn. I did have another friend at the table who spoke French perfectly and translated when I ran into a wall. It was exhausting, but worth it. We laughed a lot too and used myriad hand gestures. My guests were happy and at ease in spite of the struggles in language. Customer service workers should do no less than someone who is trying to make a guest at ease.
I am on Twitter a lot these days and mostly, I love it. I love the engagement, the sense of community, the open conversations, chatting with people I’d never meet without social media, etc. I think social media is a great way to crowdsource, meet new people and most of all learn. There are however, quite a few worms cropping up lately in my social media apple.
This morning I got a big, fat, nasty worm in my mouth and before I had coffee! Ugh. In my email inbox was a message from Facebook saying, “So and so has added you to the Blah, Blah, Blah Latina Group.” Wait, what? I didn’t recall getting an invitation to join this group. I sure didn’t remember having anyone ask me if I would like to be included. If I had, I would have refused politely with a “no thank you.” My Irish/Mexican temper started to bubble at the surface. That was RUDE!
I clicked the Facebook link and sure enough, there I was added and pigeon-holed into a group that I didn’t have the slightest interest in joining. So I left it and unfriended the person that I thought I had unfriended a long time ago. That should have been the end of it, but my blood was still boiling.
First of all, yes I am a Latina. Rather, I am a Chicana/Xicana, a mixed mutt pocha from Los Angeles. I consider myself a writer, a blogger, lover of books, reading, travel, shoes and someone who adores cooking. I’m a mother, a grandmother and an auntie but I’m NOT a mommy-blogger. I’m NOT a Latina blogger. I’m me, a writer named Gina Gleason Ruiz who happens to be Latina. I am a writer. I am a blogger. I write about books on one blog, food, family and tradition of which a lot happens to be culturally Mexican-American in another. I write about virtual worlds, Los Angeles, art, life, grandchildren and even aliens. Here, at Chancleta Dodgers, I write about chanclas and locuras that are extremely cultural. That doesn’t mean I want to be lumped into a group and forced into a round hole where I don’t fit. I’m not jumping on the “Just because I’m of Mexican descent/Latina I’m a hot commodity”, shiny bandwagon. What’s next? Irish blogger? I’m part Irish. How about Jewish? One of my grandmothers was Jewish from Holland so maybe I’m a Dutch blogger. STOP with the labels! Stop the madness.
I was blogging and writing long before all these groups starting making their way into my life. For the record, I belong to a few Latina groups that I think have a strong mission and what I love about them is that they don’t limit themselves to JUST Latinos.
I am NOT part of any other Latino groups nor do I endorse them. I say this because I have been seeing other groups hashtagged in Twitter with my @ginaruiz attached to the Tweet. It makes me feel slimy and dirty. It makes me feel used. I never Tweeted those Tweets, I never use those hashtags. Hell, I didn’t even click the link! I RESENT having my name attached to them for no other reason than the person that is Tweeting them thinks somehow by adding my name that others will think I endorse it. I feel it’s a lie that is perpetuating itself. I don’t endorse such Tweets. Did you SEE me re-Tweet it? No. In fact, I make it a practice to immediately un-follow anyone who does that to me. I’m not talking about every Latino group – the groups that have tacked me onto their links and posts without even asking me know who they are and I see no need to list them. If you’ve got a clean conscience, then obviously I’m not talking about you.
Social media is great but sometimes we need lessons in manners. Would you drag someone you barely know or don’t know at all to a party without their consent just because you think they might bring something to it? Isn’t that kidnapping? That’s what it feels like to me when I am tossed into a group without even a by your leave. It’s not nice.
I don’t pretend to have tons of influence. I don’t. Somehow, along the way I’ve acquired a few thousand followers and I do try to engage with them all. I honestly want to get to know them and learn from them. Others, well that unfollow button is mighty handy. I don’t follow just to accrue followers. If I’m following you, it’s because I think you might have something interesting to say and I would hope you are polite to me and ask me if you’d like me to attend or join something.
I’ve never fit into round holes. I’ve never been a conformist. Ask my family. I don’t like being confined, especially to some shiny label that’s overused and over done. I’ve never been anything but ME and that’s someone I’m very proud to be. I don’t join groups just because. I don’t say “oooh shiny” and immediately lose focus, unless it pertains to shoes and those shoes better be damned pretty like the ones I saw at Neiman’s with the little mink roses that I can’t afford.
Don’t box me in, don’t push me where I don’t want to go or I’ll come out swinging. I may lose lots of Twitter followers and Facebook friends because of this post, but sabes que? I don’t care. If you know me, you’ll stay. If you don’t and think I’m a bitch, then I don’t think we need to be friends, do we? Frankly, my stream is a little out of control and can use a trim.
Hablando de Chancletazos