There’s a kind soul just down the road from me, who collects backpack / rucksacks (whatever you call them) for a charity. The charity send them off with things in them, pencils, bowls… Even now I’m still not sure what it’s all about, but it’s for kids, somewhere… Anyways, I collect the bags up for her from charity shops and she knows what she’s doing, for she’s being kindness personified. We could all aim to being like that, sharing and resourceful with the things around us.
So I’m loving what she’s doing, but also I’m a lover of rucksacks, for they’re better for your back and spine than other bags that limp off of one shoulder. A rucksack is a comfortable bag, it’s not a statement (I may be wrong, it’s happened before) and they can be plan, pretty, handsome and some are fun to look at too. I especially love the silly ones myself and prefer to buy ones that others have thrown away to the charity shops. I have some I’ve bought from the place I volunteer, they’re in all sorts of daft shapes, animals, unfashionable… Of course wearing them as an adult makes people think all sorts of preconceived ideas about me and especially childlike. I like if people are kind, but oh how I love to squish patronising viewpoints and usually do it with a lot of inner non-verbalised “Mwahahahaha, got yer!” If some perceive me as dull because of me wearing my cheerful rucksacks, I can see the potential for hilarity with that and lessons in manners to be taught!
This hasn’t always been the case though, for once someone caught me off guard in a shop as I was squatted down looking at things in a box. They were just so very rude and patronising, mainly because of their perception of my mental status they had perceived and assumed from the childish bag I wore. Seriously, they started to belittle me and ordered me around. I could tell in their tone that they (keeping to ‘they’ because I don’t want gender to come into it) thought I was an unattended person with limited abilities. They portrayed an intention to lord it over someone vulnerable, be secretly rude and get away with it! I got upset with those terrible thoughts. It actually made me start to sob! Seriously it wasn’t as a result of the rudeness to me (for I could have fought back so very easily with avengement of a bloody Viking and might well have been within my rights as a customer too), but because if they were like that to me, how are they to others who really do hae limited abilities? I let them at it (again ‘them’ for gender doesn’t come into it) and me crying made them carry on even more! FFS! and Geez!, I had to stay just to give them enough leeway to let them make as much mistakes as possible to me, not to be ever be repeated to another. Once they’d done and gone, I stopped sobbing and walked out of the shop. I gave myself enough time out, to not only totally calm down and be as cool as a cucumber, but to formulate and collect my bestest responses. Then “Mwahahahaaa!” I went back fully armed with the correct words and had a wonderful time on my articulate return. I imagine I taught one huge eloquent lesson, that they and the other staff I called over to hear me, might never ever forget!
I stopped wearing the cheerful backpacks for a while and started acting “Normal” with “Normal” bags to be taken seriously, but no, I have returned to occasionally wearing childish rucksacks. It’s not just for the craic, but for the potential hilarious lessons I can teach others about not being rude and condescending cowards!
Over Soil 