Crack boo Where Are You?

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor

I work for one of the largest PR firms in the metro Atlanta area. I don’t make a whole lot of money, but a couple of years ago I decided to invest my hard earned dollars into my first piece of property. The neighborhood isn't the sheikest, but I’ve created an oasis in my ‘hood.

Owning a home was a dream come true, but keeping up the property was a nightmare; someone has to shovel snow in the winter and pick up leaves in the fall. You can imagine my delight when God answered by prayers. God blessed me with a crack head who knocked on my door one night offering to pick up the leaves from my front yard for $5.00. At first, I was skeptical, but I took one look at all those leaves and said ok. Now some people may think I was taking advantage of this woman but she set the price and, as far as I was concerned, it was a win/win for everyone.

About five minutes later crack boo knocked on my door. She had piled up every single leaf and asked if I had a trash bag. She then offered to clear the gutter for another $5.00; couldn’t say no to that deal either. She was back at my door in five minutes and the gutter was clear. Crack boo was averaging $1.00 a minute.

I have no idea how crack boo got on top of my roof with no ladder or cleaned up those leaves with no rake. All I know is crack boo was fast and never bothered me for any tools, not that I had any to offer.

This relationship went on for several months. Once a week crack boo continued to expand her list of services. She even offered to wash my car. Guess how much? $5.00! But I decided against that service because I never saw any water and I can’t be rolling around town with spit shine. Other than that, I couldn’t complain. I wouldn’t have been able to afford my mortgage payment if I had to pay market price for these services.

Eventually, I stopped hearing from crack boo. I didn’t know if she got locked up, strung out or moved on to different neighborhood. Maybe she got clean. All I know is life has not been the same with out crack boo.

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Servitude Sistas With Attitudes (part two)

By Anonymous

Click here to read (part one)

Sistas in positions of servitude are often gatekeepers to the information you need. Whether you're trying to return an item a day past the expiration date, or not tying to have to stand in multiple lines at the DMV because of a missing document – these sistas will either make or break your day.

You often have to approach the situation thinking, “Do I want to win or do I want to be right?”

For example, knocking a sista upside the head for giving you much attitude when answering a simple question, may be considered the "right" thing to do – being that it’s her job to answer the question! But if you just missed your connection and are trying to get information on the next available flight, this might not be the way to win.

Even one of my guy friends peeps the hostility exuding from most servitude sistas. He usually combats this with a compliment on either their hair or nails, which often helps to melt some of that anger...even if just for a moment.

I've often felt the hate exuding from the servitude sistas sitting behind the desk. I usually switch into my around-the-way tone in attempt to gain some level of connectedness and convey, “Girlfriend, I am one of you." But they would never know that and are rarely trying to hear that. All they see is a pretty girl, with pretty hair, light skin, and light eyes. Spike Lee’s School Daze all over again.

My mom, who happens to be a servitude sista, peeps the nasty attitudes amongst some of her colleagues, which burns her up inside as she recognizes this as another form of self hate. Because she is a darker skinned woman servitude sistas tend to confide in her. Whenever a fair skinned woman walks into the office one of them will say something to the effect of “She thinks she better than me.”

Honey, that is the last thought on anybody’s mind. And even if it is, who cares! Just do you.

On the flip side, I was standing at the end of a long check out line at a Trader Joes. The cashier, a sista, was closing out her register, until she spotted me and gestured for me to come over. When I approached her she said, “You know I only opened for you because we have to stick together.”

Thank god there are some places where the race card still works.

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Are the skills we learn in the white world transferable to ours?

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor Robin Thatcher

This guy I’d been seeing for a couple of months and I decided to take a trip down Miami last October. The idea was to escape the frigid NY air but ended up not getting much better in Miami as it was freaking COLD! Not quite NY cold, and we damn sure dipped out right before that blizzard, but I was still expecting to at least be rocking a sarong and some sandals instead of my guy friend’s sweat shirt and jeans – not cute. You know it’s cold when the white people who are at the pool are covered up. Regardless of what the temperature is they are usually on some Tim Gunn tip and “ Make it work!”

For a minute I thought about playing with the stereotype and putting on some suntan lotion, diving into the pool and pretending not to be the least bit phased by the Alaskan vibe but that idea ended at the thought. Instead, my guy friend and I ordered hot chocolate spiked with rum…oh, and food. Thinking that liquor would at least begin to turn this trip around it only went downhill from there. The hot chocolate was not hot enough, my filet mignon was over cooked, his bacon was burnt instead of crisp, the mint garnish in my risotto was wilted, the silver wear had spots on it, there were lemons seeds in my green salad, we asked for water no ice, which took an unnecessary 10 minutes and the cheesecake we ordered for dessert was made with pie crust rather than graham cracker.

To make things worse, when it was time to depart, I checked us in online only to discover that our flight was canceled. What if we had driven all the way to the airport? Some kind of notice would have been nice for goodness sakes. We were frequent flyer members!

At the airport my grandmother called to see how I was doing and when I told her about my trip and what we had been through she asked what kind of world I thought I was living in thinking I had these kinds of entitlements.

The question caught me off guard, for after all of my schooling and training with white people over the years, which my family was responsible for, I had only adapted to what I learned in that world. However are the skills we learn in the white world transferable to ours?

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Servitude Sistas With Attitudes

by today’s Urban Chameleon contributor

In every office in DC if not every where there are two kinds of Black women, those who decided to sit behind a desk with an attitude and hate and those of us whose worked our way up from the desk and are hated on. Some may classify this as the difference between having an education and not having an education about how the world works but regardless “the man” sees us all the same. That being said why the additional tension, the black on black crime in the office? You know who I’m talking about. The sistas who size you up every morning, peeping your shoes and purse and take their entire lunch hour in the break room where they cop an attitude, and all but roll their eyes when you walk into a room? Assume that you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth and couldn’t possibly be from around the same ‘hood because of how solidly you command the Queen’s English that you know how to turn on and off. Then they wonder why they’re passed over for a promotion when the man says, “Wanda is doing all she can, but she's just not qualified." Could that mean not qualified to get a long with others? Or to just realize there’s more to this game then showing up to work. Sistas there’s no room at the top for the stankness. Why be a part of the problem and making the jobs of sistas striving to be the Jefferson that much harder? But I try to remain polite, acknowledge the haters every morning with a good one knowing that when I turn the corner it’s like 7th grade all over again…where someone just whispered “Oreo” behind my back.

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Customer Service

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor

Customer Service, it’s a problem amongst our people. In the last week I’ve had several incidents. Last Wednesday I was out buying shoes and when I went to go pay for them the cashier stopped, took a deep breath before calling her friend over, another cashier, to show her my shoes. “Damn Ne, deez da shoes I wanted.” Do you think I could count on Ne to maybe say that this is not the time to bring this up…you know in front of the customer? Ne responded, “Yup, them is da shoes and dat is da last pair too. Damn.” I didn’t know if this was home-girl’s passive aggressive approach of getting me to choose a different shoe but it wasn’t working. I just stood there calmly staring at home girl who was too busy pouting to meet my evil eye. I paid cash and even contemplated changing into the shoes and fiercely walking out to really give her inappropriate ass something to pout about. I refrained.

Three days ago I left work at lunch to run an errand in midtown and after I finished I was starving so I decided to pick up something to eat in the area. Since I had just gotten paid I decided to splurge beyond my normal $10.00 maximum and enjoy myself. My total came up to $16.75 and the cashier needed to add some complimentary commentary to go along with it, “Daaaaaaaaaaam, dats like a $20.00 lunch!” Was home girl really announcing my lunch total out here?

Now just yesterday I’m at Home Depot, which I swear I will never be returning to for they try to fool you with those orange aprons like those people are licensed or have a PHD in repairs but it’s a hoax I tell you. First of all when I walked up to the customer service counter the person was on the phone deep, deep, deep in a personal conversation certainly not breaking for the presence of a customer. She was seemingly heated about something that somebody else told her that somebody else said and that person she was gonna fuck up the next time she saw her or the somebody who told her that they said what they had said. I patiently waited 45sec before interrupting, “Hi, can you just tell me where I can find the screw drivers.” Now why did home-girl stop and really look at me like I was the one with some nerve. I refused to get into it with her so I just stared back at her and waited for her to answer. She replied "aisle 6" before returning to her conversation. Now I could see from where we were both standing that aisle 6 did not have screw drivers as a huge sign read “aisle 6 rugs.” Interrupting her again,

“uhhm miss, aisle 6 says rugs.”

“Hold on" she said to the caller before addressing me, "Oh well you might have to ask someone else.”

“No, why don’t YOU ask someone else, since this is YOUR job customer service lady.”

“Damn yo, do you not see I’m having a bad day, is it so hard for you to just look around?”

A: I could call her manager. That entails assuming that the manager is smarter than her for often times they are not.

B: I could walk a few blocks out of my way to a hardware store I remember seeing and pay a little more than I would at Home Default.

C: I could leap across this counter and knock the shit out of this girl

I’ll leave it up to your imagination.

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