Soapbox

    Dear Woman standing ahead of me at the Speedway gas station at 7:30 in the morning,
            Sweetie, I have something to tell you, and you're not gonna want to hear it, but it's the truth: you are NOT going to win the lottery.
I don't care how many times you play your boyfriends' birth date, and whether you go straight or boxed or what cute pictures are on the card you scratch. You are not going to win.

       Normally I couldn't care less what you do with your money and your time, but right now, I am skating awfully close to being late for work. I just stopped in to grab some coffee, thinking I could run in and run right out but I did not count on being in line behind you and your 2 packs of Marlboro- no the soft packs,  and a Snicker bar, and lets see… how can I pay my stupidity tax today? So many bright and shiney tickets to choose from,  all with different names and different gimmicks, like the midway games at the fair with the crappy, sawdust-stuffed prizes, and then there are numbers, so many numbers to choose!
     I sighed heavily a few times but you did not get the hint and kept laughing and joking with the clerk about how you've just got to start the day with your tickets. Look, we all have something we start our day with. Me, it's this coffee I'm drinking even though I haven't yet paid for.  For the guy in the clothes of a road crew  it's apparently a morning slice of pepperoni pizza and Budweiser (ok, that's a scary thought… I"m gonna tell myself the Bud is going in his truck for lunch break) For the lady behind him in the Michelin man parka, sprayed-on jeans and gold stilletto boots it's probably that doughnut…
     You know, you're like the person with 47 items and 48 coupons, half of them expired, who gets in the 12 items or less express lane in front of you at the grocery store.
      Seriously, lady! This is a convenience store! You're are being very inconvenient right now. You are not going to win! I know, it sucks. But it's true. You could turn around and give me the 20 dollars you are spending on lottery, and be just as well off.
      In fact, tell you what: here's a dollar. Take it to walk out the door right now  and you will get more free money from this deal than you are ever going to get from a lottery ticket.

      Note to self- tomorrow, I am driving thru Tim Hortons.

      My job would be so much more fun if  I got to wear a cape.
     If  only I could stride to the counter when a customer rings the bell and then, hands on hips, feet spread purposefully as my cape settles in behind me (cool theme music clearly implied)  say,  "I'm here to help you"-  I just know the day would go better.

  My work cape would be super-hero length, ending just above the knees and flaring out nicely on every quick turn, which I would do deliberately from time to time, partly just for awesome style points, and also  to let my customers know that they are dealing with a woman of significant taste and ability.
    It would be dark gold with a scarlet lining. The gold color would engender trust, signal that I am honest, competent, forthright, and  they should relax  because know way more about this than they ever will.

   But should a customer get too clingy or whiney, or take a disrespectful attitude with me, I can flip my cape back over my shoulders so that the scarlet lining shows. This flash of red will let them know that I am not a person to be trifled with, say without words  shut up and take my advice.
    If I could stroll into my boss's office in a swirl of scarlet and gold, I can't help thinking that my annual evaluations would go better.  And when driving in heavy traffic, I might let a portion of the cape trail out the window to flutter in the breeze. Other drivers would know that, while I am a safe and courteous driver, they should not mess with me in a merge. You don't cut someone off in traffic when you know they are wearing a super hero cape.   

 I really should have 2 capes, though: Superhero for every day wear, but for those occasions  that require a little more presence, perhaps even a bit of sang-froid, I will need a full length cape of deepest, deepest blue… my Severus Snape cape. One that does not merely flare but positively billows out behind me like my own trailing entourage.

   In my Severus cape, as I stride the halls of the IRS, the BMV, the courthouse or even the opera house, people would step out of my way. Because you simply do not fuck with someone in a full-on Severus cape, now do you?

   You know who else would enjoy his job more if he wore a cape?  The President.

   I suppose his cape would have to be red white and blue, with stars on the shoulders. Which is cliche, I know, but it would certainly put all those stupid flag-pin wearing congressmen in their place.  Just think how it would swirl around him in an aura of power and authority as he walks from Air Force One for a meeting with some recalcitrant head of state! Suck it, Venezuela!  

   But the president really needs two capes as well. When the shit really hits the fan, when the accusations of "Socialist" and "Muslim" are flying, when they're painting his face with a bone through his nose on watermelons and attacking his wife and daughters in all those "I'm not a racist but" ways that they hit him every day; when the white hoods they have tucked into their pockets are starting to come out, he could go to his closet and pull out his other cape,  his "Leader of the goddamned free world" cape .
        And then he could call a joint session of Congress, assembling all the obstructionist, self-aggrandizing party leaders:  the ones  who are out there doing book tours and speaking tours instead of governing, who charge "traitor!" and "Un-American" but would rather shut down the entire United States government than compromise and inch .
        When the Sargent of Arms bangs his stick for attention, before he can get a word of introduction out of his mouth, the President would brush past him and stalk to the podium wearing his Darth Vader cape in it's full, ridiculous awesomeness, Secret Service detail scurrying behind to keep up. Imperial March clearly implied!
     What a treat it would be then to watch the expressions on the face of the Speaker of the House when the President talks of protecting civil rights and health care in his Vader cape. Ah-ah ah… careful gentlemen!   For if some over-excited member of the opposition should have the temerity to hiss or shout "You lie!" while he is speaking the President could pause, slowly turn his head and extend his hand slightly toward the neck of the red-faced man and say, in solemn tones,    

   "Do not fuck with me, Senator, for I am the President of the United States, and you will show some respect. If not for me, then for the office, and if not for the office… then for the cape."   

    Oh yes, I believe everyone's job would be better if they got to wear a cape.

The sins of the fathers are just water under the bridge these days. Forgive and forget!
But oh, God sends the flood to punish the sins of the mothers.

    He does it by creating new life and then breaking it, in ways large and small-
cleft lips, twisted limbs, unseeing eyes, wasting disorders, short-circuiting brains tiny holes in tiny, hummingbird hearts~
this is how the Lord of hosts, who controls the motions of the heavens whose love for the world football players write under their eyes on game days… this is how He punishes a woman.  
    So sayeth the smug politician who vigilantly guards the gates of decency against the incursion of women looking for health services and hoping to limit their family to the number of children they can afford to feed and clothe decently.
    Armed with muddy theology about divine wrath, this man- who can never know the joys and fears of carrying new life-  solemnly intones that God has revealed to him that handicapped children are divine punishment upon a woman for the sin abortion. Terminate your pregnancy, even to save your own life, and God will punish your selfishness by sending you his most precious gift: a child
… with disabilities.

     I am only a flawed and sinful daughter of Eve, so perhaps this is why I am so confused by the fuzzy math of this equation.
 ~ Why does God not similarly punish those who kill children who have already been born,
 ~ and why do so many women who have abortions go on to have healthy, happy children,
 ~  and why have so many mothers of disabled children never had an abortion at all
 ~ and how in heaven could a new, sweet life, however challenged and challenging,  ever be a punishment at all?
Why would a loving God damage a child when the child is not the sinner?
And just where exacty do the sins of the fathers figure into this divine calculus?

   If this is a punishment then, in overwhelming numbers, we are missing the message, Lord. Most of us feel just as blessed by disabled children as by the ones born whole. There are some who even seek out and adopt these instruments of divine punishment and find their lives immeasurably enriched by them.
     Our children are not weapons and their impediments are not punishments: they just draw a different rubric for success.
    When simple tasks for others are challenges the size of a wheelchair for your child, in a house where surgeries are more common than birthdays, each new accomplishment, however small, gets taped to the refrigerator of the parent's heart to be exclaimed over,  bragged about to friends and neighbors with aching pride. When limbs don't want to obey the brain's commands, the child who walks across the room becomes your olympic hero. When words are difficult, each "I love you" is a diamond sharp enough to cut glass.

   So tell me, someone, why would the God of love harm an innocent, unborn child just to make a point to a woman whose sin was harming an innocent, unborn child? Why not just make her infertile,  strike her dumb, visit a plague of insects or send one of his tried but true lightning bolt? Isn't there a clearer way for a deity to get his message across?
     I am still confused about why God killed so many abortion-less people with hurricane Katrina because of abortion. Or was it about all those wanton Mardi Gras parades? Even the peddlers of fire and brimstone can't agree,  which doesn't sound like very omnipotent communication for the guy who made the heavens and the earth.
     Still, we are supposed to believe that God, the all-knowing, all powerful deity, whose eye is upon even the sparrow, has really lousy aim and just fires random shot-gun blasts of hate at his precious children. And while we wade through the rivers of blood and pain we're supposed to figure out what in the hell he got ticked off about this time and who in the hell he was shooting at.
    God, who can put his son's face on a taco shell can't just text someone to tell them to knock it off or draw a giant crop circle in Nebraska with the international symbol for No Gay Marriage.  No, he sends spina bifida and tay sachs- a lifetime of pain to someone who did no wrong, just because he doesn't like their mother.

    Well if you have any messages for me, Lord, really,…
a simple burning bush will do the trick.