America and the bathroom counters

Earlier this year, I was crossing Main Street when a truck full of bros rolled down their window and loudly told the Asian women walking in front of me to “go back to China.”

It reminded me of an experience my father once related. A chief engineer who had sailed the world, my dad came to America in 1988, earning a master’s degree in marine policy, and remaining here to provide a better life for his wife and daughter. Around the height of the first Gulf War, his car idled at a red light and another driver pulled beside to yell, “Go home, you sand nigger.”

“This is America?” my father thought, and as I walked across Main Street this beautiful spring day, I thought the same. America is a racist. If America were a person, that’s who he would be.

I also see America as the smartest girl in high school who is now in college, where the landscape is bigger and the competition more formidable.

America is lazy. Entitled, too.

At the height of my work drama, I often wondered if I could have an honest conversation with my big boss, the Mountain. She liked me, knew I worked hard, had talent, and was also a woman of color. And I just believe minorities in positions of power will always respect employees who hustle, bust ass, and kill shit. But when the two of us did finally go to lunch, I said nothing of my work woes. It wasn’t appropriate and it wasn’t the time.

At the Mountain’s goodbye party a few weeks back, I told the story of how she was a woman of immense integrity and work ethic, and that was something I noticed when I walked out of the bathroom stall one day to see her cleaning the counter tops. There had been notes in the office restroom to “please keep the counters dry,” though I never did, and until that moment I had never seen anyone else clean them either. Because there’s a certain obvious grossness with bathrooms—not my mess, not my problem—and yet here was our vice president getting her hands dirty.

It made me think of my mom, a 5-foot immigrant who, as a child in India, would sit with the servants at dinnertime. “Why should the people who cook our food not be at the table?” she’d ask her parents, who could never offer an adequate response. Today, my mother works 365 days a year in the corporate capital of America, fighting for economic justice and equality, having returned to law school at age 40, after one of her clients lost his home and after being unable to testify on behalf of a forthcoming bank merger that would have hurt many more. My mom is the epitome of a boss bitch, fighting with a Daring Spirit Bold, and as executive director of a small, underfunded nonprofit, she has no problem being the janitor too.

Last Saturday, I got high at a wedding and watched a beautiful, blonde, 20-something stand by the bathroom door with a look of disgust. Her face said she’d rather be anywhere else, and when I exited the stall, I saw her smile at the Mexican cleaning lady and say, “Well, it doesn’t make sense for us to both do this.” She left her rag on the counter and walked out.

I thought of her again last night, as the edible started to kick in at the Longwood Garden’s Nightscape show. Mr. D and I were in line for a $10 hot dog, and I asked for a cup of tap water.

“We don’t have any,” said the tight-lipped blonde behind the counter.

“You don’t have a faucet,” I asked, with perhaps a trace of “gimme-a-fucking-break” in my voice.

“Nope.”

“I see one right there,” said Mr. D, pointing to a very prominent tap.

“Doesn’t work,” she said.

“Well what about a water fountain?” I continued. “Can I get a cup to fill if I stumble upon a fountain?”

“All the fountains are indoors, and they’re all closed.”

“OK,” I said. “I guess we’ll take a $3 bottled water.”

I was high and indignant.

“I’m going to blog about this,” I told Mr. D. “What if the kids were here and thirsty? Would she still be such a cunt?”

Maybe. The Flint government didn’t give a shit about kids when it came to water. Then again, those kids didn’t look like Becky, who forgot to get my damn water even after I paid. (And dammit, I wish I had gotten her name.).

I thought about her for much of the night, until I started bugging out in the conservatory. “I need to get the fuck out of this place,” I told Mr. D.

I felt stifled by the opulence, my wild, jungle heart trapped by the manicured plants on display. So much wealth all designed to make nature the White Man’s bitch. Or at least that’s how my stoned Hindu brain interpreted it. The creepy music didn’t help either. I was ready to go home.

Before I did, we stopped at the entrance. Mr. D filled my empty water bottle from a water fountain while I used the restroom. And as I walked out, I watched a Mexican woman wipe down the sink.

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