It's Okay

I worked with my dad on Tuesday and Wednesday in Compton. If you aren't familiar with the reputation Compton, California has, I refer you to this audio/visual from the late 1980s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MrQtOoQRpc

Anyway, we were working there Wednesday in some empty lot. Here are some things that I saw/that happened to me the hour and a half I was there.

1.) A black prostitute said "Olla" to me as we drove past her. It was daylight, around 3 pm. She had blue stars tattooed on her thighs - which I could see because her black shorts were only about four inches long. She was actually pretty, and only in her late twenties or so.

2.) While I was raking some trash inside the empty lot, inside it's chain-link fence perimeter, a guy came up to me from the street. He had on black dress pants, a blue shirt with cartoon characters on it, and a camouflage backpack. I saw him approaching from the corner of my eye, and a few seconds later he came up to me and said through the chain-link, "Oye, como te tu vas a requdo de me so tu que mi lo que?" At least, that's what it sounded like to me. I told you before that I, sadly, am not fluent in Spanish. Hoping to get back to work, I decided to try to get rid of this guy. I thought he may only speak Spanish, so I said to him, in English, "Sorry, I don't speak Spanish," and shrugged my shoulders. He seemed a bit surprised, but the very next moment he said, in perfect-ish English, "Oh, sorry, man. Hey, do you want to buy some Android Tablets?" I thought, D'oh. Oh well. I said, "Nah, sorry, man." I hoped the harder I waved my hands in front of me, the quicker he'd leave. "You sure?" he asked, staring with unfocused eyes at me. "Yeah, no thanks," I said. Then the guy spotted my dad working about fifty feet away, and said, "Do you think your boss would be interested?" "Him?" I said. "Him less so than me." "Oh," the guy said. "Okay." Then he walked away. And that's how I avoided buying stolen computer tablets.

3.) While waiting in the truck outside the bank for my dad, I saw a skinny white girl walk by. She was talking on her cell phone. She had dyed red hair, and a black tank-top on. Her shorts were so short that the lower half of her butt could be seen. Not her thighs; it was her butt hanging out. Her ripped jean shorts were shaped like a V.

4.) (Technically in Lynwood, an adjoining city. But still similar to Compton.) I saw two teenagers, a boy and a girl, who I assumed to be a couple, sitting next to each other on a high school football field. remember that this is California and practically every high school is an outdoors one. since it was a wednesday around 3:30 in the afternoon, there was no one else around. They sat right next to each other in that big grassy field - and when we turned a corner and drove past the school, I could see the girl resting her head on the guys shoulder.


The point of life isn't to be happy, I've realized.. if it was, we'd all be selfish jerks. there are some people who are happy to sit inside their houses all day eating pizza and burgers. they're only interactions outside are to go to work and to buy new cars. everything else is ordered online. they're yards are a mess, littered with pieces of trash and junk they've thrown away. i've worked at houses where these people live.

i've worked at places where nice people live, too. my dad does this place - a huge, multi-leveled apartment building in Compton. There has to be dozens of residents there; the building literally takes up an entire block. anyway, we were there on tuesday for four hours, mowing and blowing and raking. about two or three hours in, this lady comes out and hands us sliced fruit in a ziplock bag. pineapple, watermelon, mango. She also gives us water. it was so delicious after working in the sun for so long. we sat down and enjoyed it. about fifteen minutes later, she came out again and gave us ice cream!

that isn't normal, is it? that is above and beyond normal. that is true kindness. it may be that she gave us these things so that we'd do a good job on her section of the apartment block, but i think it still counts. i've also met people who give us something to drink every time we do their houses. seriously, almost every time they'll offer us drinks. it's definitely not at every house; most people are content to pay us and not interact much with us, which is both okay and fair. afterall, we're getting paid to do a service, and we do that service well. everyone gets something. but those people who like to talk with my dad and give us drinks and fruit and ice cream - those are special kinds of people. the world only has a handful of those people. we need to take care of them.

we also worked at an elementary school early tuesday morning. we had to get there and finish cleaning everything before the kids started to arrive. whenever i had trouble mowing the lawn, i encouraged myself by thinking, "FOR THE CHILDREN! AHHHH!"

i'm beginning to think that the point of life - or one of the points - is to enjoy it. how do we do that? by helping others enjoy life.

PS: I know my capitalization isn't great. i'm okay with that.