Figures. Mercury’s in retrograde, Mars is squaring pretty much everything in my chart, and the Sun is opposing my natal Pluto yesterday and today. And we all know what that means: I’m just looking for someone to skewer. That doesn’t mean the results will be bad and if I know it’s coming, I might as well make use of the energy while keeping the “attitude of gratitude.”
It doesn’t happen often, or maybe not often enough considering how docile I’ve been at times in my past, but sometimes I get that “I’ll take you on, no matter what” energy that makes me break through any tyranny or idiocy aimed at me. Where I might not normally fight, it’s the perfect energy to direct at something that needs to be fought.
One was a nameless colleague who has taken to putting out Jesus-in-your-face literature in the only women’s bathroom at work. When I say “in your face,” I mean literally. It is eye-level, no apologies “witnessing” (actual words) six inches from your face if you’re on the toilet. And literally between the woman on the toilet and the toilet tissue. I counted at least 40 magazines, devotionals, newspapers, and more, all from the woman’s particular church, all preaching about holy marriages with submissive women vs those evil divorcees, how to pray your ungodly daughters back into the fold and do little things that will screw with their lives until they comply, and what-would-Jesus-eat diets.
Literature everywhere. On the table, on the rail, on the tampon disposal box, on top of the toilet tissue dispenser, on the floor, on the sink, on the chair…. I left a sign to remind her (I don’t know who it is) that she’s not supposed to be forcing any one particular religion on her coworkers on a military installation and that it’s a violation of the EEO rules. I guess she read it because my sign disappeared within the hour.
And then she dumped the rest of her Sunday School books in the women’s room. So I gathered them up and placed them gently in the trash….only to find them out again within the hour.
My boss suggested I either trash them or put out my own literature on my religion (which I don’t believe appropriate to do). I removed the literature, donating it to the nearest dumpster….yesterday and its replenishment today.
But I am grateful that such an over-the-top, shove-it-down-the-throat-of-a-captive-audience maneuver finally caught the attention of people in my organization who didn’t really understand before what minority religions (many are in the closet) deal with on an Air Force base. Even the Christians of other denominations were a bit disturbed by the tactics.
The other fight today was the cable company. I have this really strong dislike for getting anything that says “past due” on it, particularly when it’s been paid through an automatic withdrawal from my account. But after 40 minutes on hold with the continuous loop message telling me how valued I am as a customer and why don’t I just pay online instead of calling them, I hung up and headed down to Cox Cable to see them in person…and stand in line for another 40 minutes.
Now, here’s an indicator that something’s amiss: of the two employees behind the counter, the woman takes care of 30 employees in the time the man takes care of one guy who’s returning a digital converter. I was his second customer during the time I was there, and at least 70 people were served in the time I was there.
His first mistake was telling me I needed to have money in my checking account. His second mistake was telling me that “past due amount” meant what I owed last month and the statements always said that. His third mistake was telling me I didn’t have proof that I actually had a checking account and I’d have to go back to my bank and get them to fix Cox’s mistake. I lost count after that.
Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Love in the Third Degree.
But since I had to go down there to get things fixed, which I did, I also gave him the documentation to show Cox owed me $25 for a returned service fee they charged last year on an automatic payment they tried to withdraw from an account number that wasn’t mine. While he was not wanting to fix that, I decided I don’t really need those extra channels my ex had set up years ago and I downgraded—waaaaaaaaaay down—on the spot. It looks like I’ll be saving close a $1000 a year.
So I’m grateful that someone else’s mistake and their initial failure to remember that I was a valued customer led me to trim up an overdue (the trimming, that is) effort.
Both little fights today will have long-standing repercussions. I suppose I attracted that energy to make something happened and I do believe both people I dealt with had already attracted my ire to them. That “fight” energy was what I needed to blast through the situations and move things to a better place. For that, I’m grateful.
Having a little attitude with your gratitude is not necessarily a bad thing.
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