Exotic yet ordinary

I get to work this morning, late, and as I’m sneaking through the 3rd floor door, I bump into a co-worker. I manage a wave, mumble good morning, force my sleepy face into a smile, and make an uncharacteristically chatty remark about the outfit she has on (my rampant tardiness makes me nervous). This in turn draws attention to my own ensemble, nothing she hasn’t seen before since I recycle the same three or four outfits over and over again each week… until she gets to my shoes. Oo! You’ve got new shoes! She says. They’re cuuute. Where’d you get them…? As I’m explaining that I got them on sale last year at Goody’s, she interrupts to ask if I’m wearing hose. I look down at my nekkid, sockless feet, feet that obviously don’t have hose on them. Um, no. No, I’m not, I say. She laughs and says, Your feet are WHITE! You. are. WHITE! (emphasis on WHITE, in case you missed it). It looks like you have white hose on, you’re so white! Yeah (ha ha), they’re white all right, I say. And then I turned to go to my desk.

Suddenly, I found myself back in high school, but with jerk face, unimaginative co-workers in place of all the jerk face, unimaginative kids, the kind who had nothing better to do than point out the obvious. Like that I am white. Really white. Blinded-by-the-white white. Amanda-the-friendly-ghost white. Glow-in-the dark white. And the ever impressive damn-you’re-white white.. Lucky for me I’m so over being hurt by that crap.