~ I got my first rent check in on time, with a whopping 3 minutes to spare!

~ Now that I don’t have to worry about it, I’m gonna take a look at my lease to figure out their policy – its very possible that I didn’t have to rush so hard from work…

~ I went to Starbucks this morning to grab a sandwich and a cup of coffee. I’ve been to this starbucks a few times so far, so I’m starting to know some of the people in there. When I went in this morning, there was a nice guy in there who I got to know over a discussion about photography. There was a woman I hadn’t seen before working at the cash register.

~ While waiting, I was stretching my arms and neck to relieve some of the post-couch-moving soreness that I’ve had since yesterday. This started a little conversation about it:

     Me: I moved my couches yesterday with the help of two guy friends, now I’m pretty sore. My apartment’s got a pretty annoying entrance which makes moving the couches really frustrating.

     Her: Yeah, I had an apartment with a front door like that. I had to carry everything through the garage to get it into the house.

~ At this point there was a momentary lull in the conversation, in which the guy was evaluating the possible pros of moving to make up for its inevitable muscle pains. Then,

     Him: I gotta say, one nice thing about moving is the opportunity to feel a little manly, ::begin comical, tongue-in-cheek gesticulation:: ya know, planning the strategy, heavy lifting, and so on.

~ And then before I could even chime in with agreement,

     Her: ::small groan:: I moved everything myself, thank you very much.

~ I wish I had said something in this moment, but I was a bit taken aback by her sudden offense. As was he. It got awkward, and no one said anything further. He obviously felt kind of upset, most likely because she mistook his statement to be “moving is men’s work, women aren’t good at it,” when in reality thats not what he meant. He was essentially just saying, “this is my personal perspective on moving, perhaps you feel the same way?”

~ And the answer to that is yes, I do feel the same way. In fact the only time, in this modern age, that my muscles even matter anymore is when someone needs a heavy object to be moved. The rest of the time my muscles pretty much only serve to make me burningly hot and way too hungry, as a result of the higher metabolism that they incur. So if an opportunity arises to make use of them, I’ll do it (and do so happily!)

~ Ultimately the real frustration of the moment was that, because of the snappy quick-to-judge comment made by the girl, we were both rendered incapable of trying to clarify the misunderstanding. It honestly felt that any continuance of the topic could have resulted in a meltdown.

~ In related news, it’s still true that assumptions make an ass out of u and me.

~ There’s been a stir today about a Louisiana Walmart selling black barbies for 50% the price of the white version. People are pretty upset about this, and even a sideways glance at popular social websites (facebook, reddit, etc) reveals that a lot of people see this as some kind of racist gesture, as though Walmart is implying that black people are less valuable than white people. Here is the “scandalous” picture:

~ Before I start, two caveats:

     – I’ll admit – on its face, this picture looks pretty bad.

     – I don’t like Walmart very much.

~ With that said, I really feel like people are making a big deal out of nothing. A Walmart spokeswoman, Melissa O’Brien, responded to the accusations with this pretty sensible answer: “to prepare for Spring inventory, a number of items are marked for clearance. Both are great dolls. The red price sticker indicates that this particular doll was on clearance when the photo was taken, and though both dolls were priced the same to start, one was marked down due to its lower sales to hopefully increase purchase from customers.”

~ The stories and comments I see from people are really ignorant I feel – “Walmart is saying black people are worth less! What racists! Corporations are heartless!” However, assuming that this price difference is caused by customer purchasing habits (very likely, given how profit-oriented Walmart is), then this situation could have only played out in three different ways, and each way is the customers’ fault, not Walmarts. I’ve given these in order of most business-like to most “politically correct.”

     1) Exactly as it did. Walmart stocks even numbers of black and white dolls, the black dolls fail to move off the shelves, and so they lower the price to encourage customers to buy them. The “scandal” is that Walmart looks like it is valuing black people lower than white people.

     2) Walmart guesses in advance that the black dolls won’t sell as well as the white dolls, and so buys less. By modifying the supply, demand can be kept equal. Prices therefore remain equal. The “scandal” is that Walmart has assumed that people wouldn’t want to buy black dolls.

     3) Walmart stocks even numbers of black and white dolls, the black dolls fail to move off the shelves, but they keep the prices artificially equal in spite of this (this seems to be what people are expecting Walmart to have done). The “scandal” is that the black dolls now look worthless, because no one wants to buy them. This option also includes a little bonus “scandal” – all the black dolls in the trashcan after Walmart is forced to throw them out.

~ Really all three of these scenarios have an obvious reason – little girls want dolls that look like them, there are more white girls in this country than black girls, white dolls will be in higher demand, and higher demand means higher prices.

~ I wish that people would calm down about this. There are plenty of legitimate reasons for people to hate Walmart, lets not lose focus on that!