an open letter to Walmart about backpacks and underwear
Dear Walmart at Harrisonburg Crossing,
On Saturday I took two adolescent boys to Walmart to buy backpacks. They are Kurdish Iraqi refugees who have been in the United States for only a few weeks. They and their family have lived in a refugee camp in Turkey for the past year, and since they were unable to attend school during that time, the boys have been looking forward to going to school again. Today was their first day.
After a lovely visit in their home on Saturday afternoon, I drove them and their mother to your store so they could pick out backpacks and folders for themselves and their older brother. Upon arriving in the department where purses, handbags, and other accessories are sold, I soon found the backpacks. Just a moment later, one of the boys pointed to a nearby rack, where he had spotted some backpacks with cartoon characters on them. I don’t speak any Kurdish and they don’t speak much English, but I smiled and congratulated him on finding the backpacks for children.
As we walked over to this other rack, I was horrified by what I saw. On the end of the rack — just around the corner from the Spongebob, Spider-Man, and Tinkerbell backpacks — was a display of women’s underwear. Unfortunately it wasn’t even boring white, black, and tan underwear; the rack held a whole array of brightly colored undergarments.
“Welcome to the United States… where we display children’s school supplies and women’s underwear on the same rack.”
I was mortified, and due to the language barrier, I couldn’t even offer a spoken apology for the inappropriate display of merchandise. For the sake of young boys and others who may feel embarrassed when they suddenly find themselves in the women’s underwear department, I encourage you to be more thoughtful as you manage your retail space.
Sincerely,
Rachel
when Cupid misses the Target
Last evening my lovely, younger, also-single sister and I were poking holes in the theory that a single woman will find the love of her life when she’s least expecting to. I spend most of my waking hours in this supposedly magical mode of non-expectation, so if the theory were really valid, Prince Charming and I would already be living happily ever after. The only time I could possibly be expecting this less is when I’m sitting at home alone, so if the love of my life wishes to prove this theory, he’s going to need to show up at my front door unannounced.
But doesn’t expecting the unexpected make the unexpected the expected?
Lucky for me, I was not expecting to find the love of my life at Target this evening, so I guess I was more on the brink of romance than I realized. I was browsing near the end of an aisle when a cute blonde guy came into view. I couldn’t help but notice him. He looked over at me and held my gaze for a long moment. When he flashed me a smile and waved, I was smitten. I said hello, but alas, it was not meant to be. He just kept moving farther away as his daddy pushed the shopping cart down the aisle…
Do you want a beer?
I was half a block away from the completion of a very brisk, hour-long walk in 80-something-degree weather this evening when I was offered a beer. Several guys were hanging out in the front yard of a house on the corner of a main road while a girl stood on top of an SUV. Music blared through its open windows.
“Do you want a beer?!” she called out.
“No thanks,” I replied with a surprised smile.
“Why not?” she asked.
Before I could respond, one of the guys said, “Would you like some water?”
Ha! My answer was GOING to be, “Because I’d rather have a glass of water!” But he beat me to it, and since I didn’t actually want to party with this group of loud strangers, I declined and kept on walking. “No thanks. I live just down the block, so I’ll have some when I get home.”
Believe it or not, this wasn’t the first time I was offered a beer while out for a walk. Here is my Facebook status from March 17:
March 17 was, incidentally, St. Patrick’s Day. I was just a block and a half away from my house at the end of my typical hour-long walk when a guy called out to me from a small party on someone’s front porch.
“Do you want a beer!” (I’m choosing to use an exclamation mark here because his words didn’t exactly sound like a question.)
“No thanks!” I responded, not even sure which person in the group had made the offer. As I walked on by, I thought to myself, “If I had been quicker, I would have asked for some water instead.” Don’t worry, Mom. I would have just been kidding, of course, because smart single women don’t accept beverages from strangers. However, I’m beginning to reconsider my preference for early morning walks. Exercising in the evening is a lot more interesting!
my veins are my heartstrings
When I popped onto Facebook over lunchtime today to respond to a couple comments, a status update from Virginia Blood Services caught my attention.
They apparently forgot that they were on Facebook instead of Twitter, but that’s beside the point. My blood type is A-negative, and they needed it.
Today.
If this were the first such update they had posted, I would think it was just another gimmick to persuade people to donate blood. But about a month ago, Virginia Blood Services started using their Facebook page as a tool to promote urgent needs for particular blood types. First they posted this update:
… accompanied by this note of explanation:
Oh. That made it really personal! Over the next few weeks, several more updates were posted, including this one:
I’ve never donated platelets, but I have small veins, so the staff at the blood center are skeptical about how successful I would be. I’d like to at least try sometime, but since I hadn’t yet reached the end of the 56-day waiting period after my last whole blood donation, I couldn’t even consider it that day.
Last Thursday I received a phone call reminding me that I was now eligible to donate again, so I logged onto the Virginia Blood Services website and discovered a new and very-much-improved system for scheduling my next appointment. I picked a free evening in the near future and marked it on my calendar.
It’s a good thing I never write down my plans with a pen. Only about 6.3% of the U.S. population shares my blood type, so when I saw the plea for A-negative blood today, I didn’t think twice. I logged onto the website again, canceled my upcoming appointment, and scheduled a donation for right after work today.
What can I say? My veins are my heartstrings.
15 Things I Plan to Do With My Tax Refund
April 15.
4th of July.
September 11.
Without any descriptions, we know exactly what those dates mean.
If the words “April fifteen” don’t mean anything to you, you either don’t live in the United States, or you’re too young to be reading even this G-rated blog. Those two words are more than just a reference to a square on a calendar grid. April 15 is, of course, the official deadline for filing a tax return, which means that I usually file mine on, oh, April 14ish.
I’ve spent all nine years of my professional career working for non-profits. Translation: I live comfortably, but I’m not exactly raking in big bucks. I know the U.S. is in an economic recession, so I’m grateful that I have an income to be taxed. Regardless, every time I look at my pay stub, I try not to feel annoyed at how much money the federal and state governments are taking. It’s possible that I have selective memory, but it seems like I usually end up having to fork over even more money when I file my tax return, so I’m never really eager to fill out IRS Form 1040.
But like it or not, Tuesday evening found me hanging out with my laptop and a folder of documents labeled “Taxes 2008.” After less than an hour of work, the results weren’t too shabby. I only had to shell out another twelve bucks to Uncle Sam, and the good ol’ Commonwealth of Virginia will soon be depositing $115 in my bank account.
On the years that I’ve actually gotten a tax refund, I’ve never done anything even remotely interesting with it… unless you think savings accounts are fascinating. In fact, I secretly scoff at people who feel compelled to run out and blow the money that they get back. This year, however, I decided to be slightly less boring than usual. I happen to love lists, so in honor of April 15, I developed a list of 15 things I plan to do with my tax refund. But not just any 15 things. Fifteen things that will give a little $103 boost to the Friendly City.
:: 15 Things I Plan to Do With My Tax Refund ::
1. Buy a plant at the 6th annual Our Community Place plant sale. $2.50 (it was tiny!)
2. Pick out a flowerpot for my new plant at a thrift store. $1.05
3. Feel like a fool at the driving range at Mulligan’s Golf Center. (The only golfing I’ve done is of the miniature variety, but this is on my list of “101 Things to Do in 1001 Days.” Did I mention that I love lists?)
4. Eat pupusas from the new(?) pupuseria I recently spotted on Country Club Road. $8.38
5. Go bowling at Valley Lanes. (My young friend Ellen will be more than a little excited to join me.)
6. Donate a few bucks to the local library. (Or I could just not return anything until Father’s Day.) $3.00
7. Buy seeds for my garden at Rocking R Hardware. $4.58
8. Buy bread at Shanks’ Bakery. $3.41
9. See a local theater production. $2.50
10. Watch a film at Court Square Theater.
11. Buy some yardage at Ragtime Fabrics.
12. Buy meat at the T&E Meat Market (owned by Polyface Farms).
13. Enjoy the flavor of the week at Klines Dairy Bar. (The lack of an apostrophe is unfortunately accurate.) $2.47
14. Buy fresh produce at the Harrisonburg Farmers’ Market (which I haven’t been to yet this season!). $1.50
15. Give the remaining money to Hope Community Builders.
Think I can spend money at 14 places in Harrisonburg and still have some cash left over for item number 15? I’m about to find out… so stay tuned!
new friends I can’t talk with
This evening I stopped by to visit a family in my neighborhood who I had met just six hours earlier. I don’t speak their language, and I hadn’t met them in our neighborhood. I met them at the airport.
In spite of the fact that work is ridiculously busy right now, I took the afternoon off to travel to the local regional airport to greet a Kurdish Iraqi refugee family. The church I attend is sponsoring them through the Refugee Resettlement program of the Virginia Council of Churches. We spent the past few months collecting household items and non-perishable foods, and last week we got the word that a family with three adolescent boys would be arriving today. The lease on a house was signed on Monday, the house was furnished and fixed up yesterday, and the family arrived today.
Four adults and three children from our church traveled to the airport, where we were joined by two men from the Refugee Resettlement program. One of them is an Iraqi man who helpfully served as our interpreter. When a couple with three boys disembarked from the small plane, there was no doubt that they were the people whose arrival we had been eagerly anticipating. It was wonderful to share warm greetings, handshakes, and smiles with the family. (And yes, I do know all of their names, but I’m choosing to protect their privacy by simply calling them “the family.”)
When we arrived at their home here in Harrisonburg, the men from Refugee Resettlement were very impressed with everything our church had done to furnish and fix up the house. The family said it was perfect. 
The two youngest boys kicked around a soccer ball in the backyard with two kids from our church while the others in the family learned to operate the microwave, discussed international phone cards and local phone service, and laughed with an adorable toddler whose mom is serving as our church’s coordinator for this project.
Thanks to the contributions of a number of people, I coordinated a delicious meal at their home in the late afternoon. Like the house, it was declared to be perfect. Our conversation, of course, was a little less than perfect. The interpreter left before the meal, so we all made our best efforts to communicate in spite of the fact that the Americans present didn’t speak Kurdish and the family speaks very little English. Meanwhile, we were grateful that a repairman showed up to fix the furnace. When I stopped by again around 8:00 this evening to drop off a few items (including some spiffy one-hour photos), their home was warm and cozy.
Many people have given generously in a variety of ways to prepare for the family’s arrival, and the family repeatedly expressed their thanks throughout the afternoon. As I rode with them from the airport to their house, I tried to imagine what it must feel like to be seeing and experiencing life in the United States for the first time. But I couldn’t really imagine it. And I couldn’t even talk to them about it.
Anybody know a good Kurdish teacher?
April Fools jokes that linger
Yesterday I was skeptical about almost everything I heard or read. Peter’s moving to Colorado soon? I doubt it. My favorite home improvement bloggers like lampshades with cats printed on them? Not likely. The Guardian is switching to a Twitter-only format? Not at all believable, but fun to imagine. (“OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5×6e for more.”)
April Fools jokes are much more amusing when they take place ON April Fools Day… and not a day (or a month or a year) later. But thanks to the internet, many April Fools news articles linger forever. On 364 days each year, I read news articles without giving a second thought to whether they’re legitimate, so I was more than a little surprised by an article I read this evening announcing that Rush Limbaugh had accepted an invitation to speak at a Sojourners event. What?! I realized it wasn’t true when I got to the part about Limbaugh calling Jim Wallis at 3:00 in the morning and being told to read his Bible.
One of my favorite online April Fools jokes is one I discovered a year or so ago. I can’t recall whether I found it on April Fools Day, but that time I wasn’t duped. A baby boy had been born very prematurely, and his parents were maintaining a blog documenting his progress in the hospital. They regularly posted pictures of the baby with a certain stuffed animal (dog? tiger?) so that all of their friends and family could see how much the preemie was growing.
On April Fools Day, they posted a picture of the child as usual. However, someone had given them a stuffed animal that was a smaller version of the one that had been making a daily appearance. Many people posted comments on the blog saying how great the little guy looked and how glad they were that he was growing, gaining weight, and making such good progress! Unfortunately, they weren’t too observant, because no baby — no matter how premature — should double in size in a few days. But it was fun to see that the parents were able to maintain their sense of humor in the midst of an obviously stressful time.
What about you? Did you experience — or pull off — any good April Fools jokes on Wednesday?
