Rantings About the Workplace

Thirteen year old girls board my bus. Their sexless thighs stuffed into jeans that haven't been the right size since they were nine.

They hug me as they walk past or throw their arms around my shoulders. Most think I'm a good-looking young man. Some know better, have known me longer.

I work on the bus with a staunch republican/right wing, older gentleman. He's nice, but, knowing that I am not a good-looking young man, often glares at me through the mirror with hard, disapproving glances.

I am the only lesbian or even gay person at my place of employment. I work with special needs kids. Most of them have behavioral issues. Many, I pick up at Juvenile Hall, take them to school, then take them back.

Most of the people that I work with are very severely, right of center ... not that there's anything wrong with that, as long as you can do it without judging anyone else ... I have yet to meet one who could.

They look at me like the freak, who's after all of your children, and "My god, do you really think it's a good idea for her to spend so much time with the kids??" All whispered behind open palms with backward glances, of course.

The funny thing is, I'm one of the few who work there because of the kids. I truly care about the kids, and would physically put someone in the hospital if I found out they were hurting them in any way, shape, or form.

I'm one of the few who work there that isn't a closeted bigot. You know the kind that I mean. The ones who surreptitiously look around the break room before saying something like, "Well, you know, I'm not prejudiced or anything, but..." I'm a freak for being an out butch lesbian, but it's okay to make comments like that???

I've never lifted a hand to any of those kids, (there are those there that have), hell, I've barely ever even lifted my voice to one of them. And yet, I have one of the most well behaved buses at that place.

My kids smile at me in the morning as I'm strapping down their wheel chairs or making sure that their seatbelts are fastened right. Parents have thanked me for sitting and lending a shoulder when a grandparent has passed/bully problems at school/parents fighting at home.

After all that, I'm the one getting accusing glances in a rearview mirror for letting a girl hug me. After I heard one of this guy's friends making a comment just yesterday about some 14 year old on his bus' ass? After I watched him laugh about it while he dialed his wife and teenage daughter on his cell phone?

I don't get it. I just don't get it. Ah well ... hypocrisy at it's finest in the work place.