Today two amazing things happened and I would like to share them with you in a two-part series (woah, look at me going all high-tech on my reader). This is the non-nerdy story, the one everyone can read.
Here’s the second part of this series:
At the BP
My driving experience almost entirely consisted today of my car beeping at me when I went up or down a hill. I was running out of petrol and I wasn’t surprised since I did drive all the way to Byron Bay and back on the weekend. 560 on the clock, I knew the petrol tank’s life wasn’t to be much longer. After carraday (where we go to Carraway Pier and enjoy delicious burgers + chips), I went to the BP on Milton Road, around the corner from where I live. Today’s the last day for Queenslanders to fill up before the government takes off the subsidy and petrol stations start gouging (read: imitating South Australia’s) prices. So of course the line’s long. I fill up, and go inside, get money out and wait in the line of 7 or so people in order to get served by the lone clerk.
Then she walked in front of me.
This heavy-set woman who looked like she did weight lifting with semi-trailers walked past, about the same height as me but really, really built. She was wearing a leopard-print shirt, skirt and fish-net stockings. Then she walks over to the door and enters the security code, up to the counter and starts serving people.
Then I realise the chiselled chin, the bulge in the throat. She was once (or still is) a man. “Next, thanks!”, she says in a deep baritone voice, unmistakably male. I was shocked at first, it’s not something that you see every day.
Now step back 10, 20 or 30 years. This person would’ve been beaten or worse for doing what they’re doing now. If they were alive, they probably wouldn’t be employed.
You’re thinking right now that I’m old-fashioned. That I think that society has slipped. That I believe this person should be beaten and unemployed. That’s where you’re wrong. Very, very, wrong.
I got served at the counter by this person, who commented on my shirt, “When are you going to finish that?” because I was wearing my “Top 10 reasons I procrastinate [line break] 1.” shirt and asked if I would like both my tax receipt and change. This got a laugh out of me and my initial shock disappeared, I realised this person is too a human and why should it matter to me what they believe in or how they want to dress? These people are confident in what they think about themselves and they go out without caring what the outside world thinks of them. Good on them for doing what they think is right, and damning the rest of the world’s opinion. I applaud them.
It was also the most friendly service I ever received from a petrol station attendant.