An Apology to the Old and Pregnant

So I’m doing my part to save the planet by riding the bus to work. Okay let me be honest, I’ve been riding mass transit since before it became the fashionable thing to do, but since being ashy is now classy…I’ve gone green! Go Captain Planet! Anyways I’ve noticed a great influx of folks showing their bus passes these days and things have gotten extremely crowded on the chariot, to the point that bus drivers refuse to move until folks “get back, get back!” But something is going on in this here great land of America; because among the people who are standing up in the aisle for their dear lives are the elderly and the pregnant. All while menfolk listen to their iPods and read Decency for Dummies, never once offering their seat!

Now I will admit that I, Amaretto Jenkins have this lingering idea that able bodied men are supposed to move for women. Now is this a lie someone has told me? Maybe. But I just can’t subscribe to the notion that the men, who at times are teens, in their twenties, or old like McCain weren’t taught how to be a stand up guy. I say this because I have men in my family who know better and showed me through their actions what I should expect from the opposite sex. Or even because you will never see this D-cup gal burning or even going without a bra, because I’s a lady. But I feel that women who lived through the Great Depression and ones who are about to birth a baby deserve a little preferential treatment…not just from the fellas, but from everybody.

But…the fellas should be first to bust a move.

I’m sorry, I feel some type of way about giving up my seat to somebody’s granny while I’m trying to balance in the aisle with 3 inch heels, my newspaper, and the satchel I like to call a purse… when Mister and the Gang are all sitting there watching me teeter and tauter.

I just can’t help but wonder what is going on? Like Hip-Hop, is respect between the genders also dead? I have these expectations of basic decency from men, yet I’m actually surprised when I come across some who actually met them. Last week I was telling Rum Punch about how this young man opened and closed his car door for me and that I was truly impressed. She basically hurricaned on my whole zeal parade by stating that that’s what he was supposed to do. True. She had a point. But I have a few male friends who are all about the Dutch experience. And since I’m able bodied I can open my own door, kill my own spider, and pump my own gas, he'll just sit and wait for me to finish. I don’t know, but I will say that it was nice to live like it was still 1948 and we were just coming home from the drive-in. To be a woman respected and not have to be the woman who is strong enough to do it all by herself, hear me roar!

I just feel like I should be someone’s partner in this thing call life, an equal if you will. And when I’m old or pregnant I feel like I should be taken care of, not just by my family but by my community. But seeing how folks be acting today woe to me then. Hopefully I’ll have someone in my employ to drive me around everywhere I need to go. Otherwise I need to brace myself for the pain and embarrassment of falling down on the bus, and nobody caring enough to move.

Ouch!

See You in Seven