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Look! Our vacuum cleaner is a progressive! |
I saw this news report saying that the
negativity we encounter in the news and on social media can rob us of joy. With the leaf truck making its first visit joyful
of the season today, I shut off the media and went out to multiply my joy by
picking up our vacuum cleaner.
Our vacuum cleaner had languished at the
repair shop for two months. I had gone
in, about a month in, and asked about it, but the person just said they were
waiting for a part. Another month went
by. My husband called, and got a
detailed explanation about faulty employees, an apology, and a promise to do
better.
Being without the vacuum cleaner did not rob
me of joy, but still, we decided that it was time to reclaim what is rightfully
ours. Today I went to pick up the vacuum cleaner. The staff were apologetic. I said, fine, I just want my vacuum cleaner
back. I calmly pointed out that since they didn’t fix the broken part, I
shouldn’t have to pay anything. They agreed and added that all the employees we
encountered up to now have been fired from their company. I expressed sympathy for their business
suffering from poor employee behavior.
It sincerely grieves me to see a business not do well because of jagoffs*. But I also pointed out that it was only when
my (male) husband got involved that we found out what was truly going on with
our vacuum cleaner.
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Text to my husband about vacuum cleaner:
another fun part of married life |
I triumphantly put the (still broken) vacuum
cleaner in the car and started for home.
I turned on the radio, which lately I have set to the classical music
station because it has more joy than NPR these days. As the traffic light
turned green I recognized the strains of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, 4th
movement. That’s the one with full
orchestra, full chorus, full soloists, full everything. The one Ludwig wrote when he was stone deaf.
Beethoven’s Symphony of Joy. O Freude! I turned up the volume and cracked
my window open. Spreading joy!
I thought of how the vacuum cleaner repair
place only gave results to my husband, and not me. I thought of how, throughout the years, when
we had an issue with our kids’ school, school officials would respond meaningfully
to my husband, but not me. Some people
are stone deaf when it comes to listening to a woman.
I thought of the time when, as a young single
woman feeling uncertainty and angst in my life, I went to seek help from my
pastor, a married man twice my age. As I
expressed my psychological agony to him, his response was to take me in his
arms and kiss me, full on the lips. I
cannot tell you the shame and confusion I felt at that moment, and still feel
on remembering it. This is, to my
knowledge, the first time I have mentioned this to anyone.
Me too.
This, my first “me-too” moment that I
remember, was not as severe or traumatic an experience of sexual harassment or
assault as other women have had. It took
me a while to realize that my experience counts as part of the culture that
allows it all to happen. I am
mistrustful of social media campaigns like this “me too” thing, but I felt
compelled to declare that it has happened to me, too. I want to acknowledge
that I have forgiven that man. All of
us, including me, are prone to make judgments of error. I was not permanently scarred by this
incident.
Pulling onto the main road and growing
defiant in the way only a middle-aged suburban woman can, I turned up the
Symphony of Joy to ear-splitting volume and rolled down both windows.
I thought of the all the times when I was the
only woman in the business meeting with about twenty men. One of them cracks an off-color sexist joke. They all laugh. Then the jokester turns to me to “apologize.”
I thought of the time I was at the Paris office for one of those meetings. I needed to make photocopies for the meeting
but had no clue how their photocopier worked.
A grain trader came up to me and asked me to make his photocopies. Because apparently men couldn’t do things
like make photocopies.
I decided it doesn’t matter if the
sexist-joke-plus-apology or the men-don’t-do-office-tasks was full-on sexual
harassment that qualifies as part of my me-too list, or just jagoff behavior. (I
wonder what it is like in the office of the ******-in-Chief.)
I thought of the time the male doctor I went
to about a sore throat felt compelled to feel me up, somewhere lower than my
throat. That happened when I was married, and I told my husband. He encouraged me to report the doctor. But somehow I knew that reporting it would
cause me far more grief and pain than it would the doctor. After all, it was my word against his. My silence added to my shame - because I
wasn’t willing to fight it.
Me too.
Then I thought of instances I have seen recently
of men minimizing women. You know, it’s 2017, and it’s still okay to suggest
that a woman can be paid less than a man for the same work, especially if the
woman is married to a man making a professional salary. You know, it’s okay to call a woman by a
demeaning nickname rather than her actual name, and if you have a problem with
it, you need to lighten up, honey. Those of you who do these things – yinz are jagoffs. And don’t say that my objections make it
impossible for you to interact with women at all. Just treat women respectfully as your
equal. It’s that simple.
The chorus and orchestra were by now blasting
All Joy out of my car windows into the suburban street. I fully entered into defiant joy, driving aggressively
under the speed limit for maximum effect.
I must proclaim, in my defiant joy, that nearly
all of the men in my life have been genuine, kind, respectful, worthy,
upstanding human beings. I have
encountered many pastors who listen respectfully to me and respond
appropriately. The company I currently contract
with has none of those shenanigans at meetings.
As Beethoven and Schiller put it:
Freude,
schöner Götterfunken
Tochter aus Elysium…
Alle Menschen werden Brüder**,
Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.
Joy,
beautiful spark of divinity,
Daughter
from Elysium…
All men
shall become brothers**,
wherever
your gentle wings hover.
I forgive the sexual harassment and
discrimination directed at me. Let’s wise
up, people, and learn how to treat all of us with respect.
* Jagoff
(definition): ˈjaɡˌôf/ noun (chiefly in western Pennsylvania) a stupid,
irritating, or contemptible person.
At the
request of my husband, rampant use of this word in this post has been reduced to just three instances.
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