Suzanne Belcourt's Marshmallow Girl
September 21st , 2006

Crazy

I may be crazy, but I’m going to go on a bit of a tirade now:

Recently, I went to the local Mac’s Milk to buy, appropriately enough, milk. As well as milk, I needed some garbage bag tags for the following day, so I asked for five-dollars cash back from the cashier. (You have to purchase garbage tags with cash.) Meanwhile, while I was at the counter, a lady (and I am being diplomatic here) who was waiting in line behind me became impatient—I guess I was taking too much time. I also guess she wanted to show me just how impatient she was getting, so she threw her package of gum on the counter with a loud thud. I decided I wouldn’t make eye contact with her but I got angry with her in my mind.

It’s at times like those I wish I were my sister Christi. She takes no guff off of anyone and she’s not afraid to speak her mind. Example:

Some years ago, Christi was waiting patiently at an outdoor telephone booth while the person inside the booth made their call. The person took a long time, but eventually exited the booth. At exactly the same moment a very large lady came from behind Christi and squeezed her way into the booth. My sister yelled, “Hey! I was waiting here and it’s my turn!” The woman, who was triple Christi’s size, looked down at her and said, “Don’t fuck with me!” Christi grabbed the phone out of her hand and said, “Now you’re fucking with me!” The woman stepped out of the booth and handed my sister the phone.

That story has always given me hope. Hope that one day I will be able to speak my mind. So I walked back to my apartment feeling furious over the milk incident. Furious because what I really wanted to do was yell at the woman behind me to be patient. I couldn’t help but wish I were more like my sister. If I could, I would have turned to the woman and said:

“Just be patient! Don’t you know that there are people suffering from AIDS and people having to live with it all of their lives or dying from it because they don’t have medication! That there are so many poor people in this world who can’t afford a stick of gum let alone an entire package. Some children grow up in deplorable conditions, some kids get raped, and some kids get sold into slavery. That there are wars in the world and no one can seem to stop them and more innocent people get tortured or maimed because of these them and more children are hurt in the process and you can actually stand there and be impatient while waiting in line to purchase a measly package of gum?!”

One day I will snap and actually say something like this. What do I have to lose? I may get a black eye in the process but at least I will have spoken my mind. And no one can take me away because they think I’m crazy. They can’t throw me in the slammer because I can just tell the cops that I’m already on medication.

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