Aunty Acid by Ged Backland for January 11, 2025

Yet Another Christmas Miracle!

I work as a seasonal cashier in a specialized gift shop over the holidays. I have just finished ringing up a customer.

Customer: “Thank you very much! Merry Christmas!”

Me: “You’re welcome! Merry Christmas to you, too!”

After the customer leaves, my coworker walks up to me.

Coworker: “Hey, didn’t you say you were an atheist?”

Me: “Um, yeah?”

Coworker: “Oh, I was just wondering if you ever get upset when people tell you ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘God bless you.’”

As I am about to reply, I overhear a customer talking not so quietly to her husband.

Customer: “Dear, did you hear? That girl doesn’t believe in God! How despicable! She shouldn’t even be working here!”

I turn to my coworker, just loud enough so the customer can hear:

Me: “No, I don’t get upset when people have different religious beliefs than me. Just because I’m atheist doesn’t mean I’m not an honest, decent person, or that I can’t accept that others have the right to believe what they want.”

My coworker realizes what I am doing.

Coworker: “Yeah. It’s a real shame other people can’t keep their opinions to themselves. I especially hate it when someone claiming to be Christian doesn’t act very Christlike by judging others.”

The customer, now thoroughly embarrassed, tells her husband to finish his shopping while she waits for him outside. She whispers something else to him before she leaves. A few moments later, the husband walks up with his purchase.

Customer’s Husband: “Hello. My wife wanted me to tell you she was very sorry, and that she was too ashamed to apologize herself.”

Me: “No problem, sir! Please tell her that her apology is accepted, and to have a very Merry Christmas!”

Service Recognizes Service

I work as a waitress but today I am on vacation in Florida with my boyfriend. We walk into a restaurant and I ask the waitress at the front of house:

Me: “We’d like a two-top, please.”

I realize I have spoken in my customer service voice and the waitress squints at me. I clear my throat and say:

Me: “Sorry, still in service mode.”

She drops her own service mode and we swap stories about our jobs as we’re taken to our table. After, my boyfriend says to me:

Boyfriend: “You two just became two entirely different people in like zero-point-five seconds…”

Good one, Auntie.

“Everyone you meet is carrying a burden you know nothing about.”

Even when you think you know their backstory, you’re not them.

There are always at least two (sometimes more) sides to every story. It would be nice if people got both sides before making a judgement but alas, they don’t.

♫ Nobody knows the troubles they’ve seen ♫

Amen.

Worse are the people who learn the truth about the person/people they’re judging and don’t adjust their opinions.

That advice rather slides into “Be kind to sociopaths.” It’s our apparent Zeitgeist.

Before you criticize a person, walk a mile in their shoes.

That way, you’re a mile away from them, and you have their shoes.

And yet, everyday you are judgmental about some thing or another. Kind of Ironic isn’t it Aunty.

That is so true, Aunty!

Never judge until you walk in their shoes!

Don’t judge by what someone tells you … Could be they have their own agenda.

amen

Amen to that,aunty‼️

Contempt prior to investigation!!!!!!

Life’s hard! Get a helmet!

But it is so much easier to believe that a person is a certain way based on what other people say about the group to which they belong. No thinking or empathy is required.

It’s nice to believe that you are better than they are because you’ve been told, and accept without question, how bad they are.

We are really still in the middle ages, Christians (the West) vs the radicalized Muslims. Buddhists do not regard other religions yet they too have a huge history of violence so it isn’t necessarily about religion but more because Man himself is prone to violence.

So you’re saying I’m a bad person if I smoke and drink?

You got to go with what you know, and know enough to keep it to yourself.

When I hear a person walking down the street cursing into their phone at a high volume, I always wonder, wow, do people talk to them like that too? How awful for them.

Of course, everybody has a story. It was Mom, society, beer, gambling ….

i asked a mutual friend, what’s the story with teruko? she always looks like she’s really p!ssed off about something. the friend answered, oh, she’s not angry, she’s just squinting ‘cause she’s too vain to wear glasses or get contact lenses…