Wednesday, October 03, 2018

Toxic masculinity and white supremacy

There was a huge semi parked in front of Marc's today--full of potted mums. All had been unloaded by the time I walked in. There must have been hundreds, every color and size. I kept thinking about the time and physical effort to drive that massive truck, and to load and unload. When I came out I saw the truck had moved ahead a little so as not to block the store entrance. I could see someone moving around inside, so I stood by the truck's tail gate for the driver (and I assumed a helper) to come out. He finally appeared. Only guy on the truck. He was white, fair skin, about 20, slight build, with a huge smile, blue eyes, and neatly dressed. "Can I help you," he asked. "Did you do all that by yourself?" I asked, motioning to the racks and racks of mums. He still had a load of flowers inside the truck and was moving them. "Oh yeah, it's not hard, and now I have another stop for the rest of the load."

Maybe there's a slender woman out there who could have wrestled this load and driven the truck and still be pleasant and polite to a stranger, but I haven't met her.

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