I’m at the beauty shop today (there’s no such thing as natural beauty) and as usual, there was another client there expressing views and sharing gossip. I quickly learned what she did for a living, how long she’d done it, what she used to do for a living, and also gleaned what her son did for a living in the time it took for my hair to be foiled. While I was processing, I was also privy to what all was happening on her Facebook feed and what she didn’t comment on, although she would like to, but her kids would croak. Also, she would have filled us in on the plot line of This is Us, but it was way too complicated for her to get into. You really just had to watch it and focus. She implied we weren’t intelligent enough for it, but all I heard was she still didn’t have a good grasp of it, herself.

Of course, our President came up in conversation by way of healthcare. I tried to tune out and concentrate on my book, which, ironically, is Ruby Ridge. Get it here. 

I gritted my teeth as the one-sided tirade wore on. Once she switched to capital punishment, I could hold it no longer. She was saying if you asked most people, they would support the death penalty, but if it was their own child, they’d feel differently.

And that, to me, sums up a lot of our problems in America today. The fact that your children can do no wrong, and if they do, they don’t have to face the consequences.

“I’ve been sittin’ over here, minding my very own business, trying not to get involved, but I’ve found I can’t any longer. As usual.”

My beautician smiled thinly, knowing what was coming and the inevitable fallout that is always in the wake of my Julia Sugarbaker channeling.

“That’s all fine and good until it’s your child that’s the victim. And I know, as Christians, we’re called to pray for people who’ve slipped. But if it was your child, raped, murdered, set on fire, you’d be wantin’ some retribution. So if you want to finance your little felon for the remainder of his life in prison, be my guest. ‘Cause it ain’t cheap to waste away a lifetime sentence in America’s finest institutions. I’m for letting them get off the taxpayers meal ticket as soon as possible.”

Intelligently, she agreed with me.

I know I voice unpopular opinions regularly. But I can’t help but think what if I was someone who had lost a sister, or a husband, or a best friend, or a child to some senseless crime and here’s this stranger touting for the other side? Holding up for a person who did evil to someone who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time?

People make me want to scream and create my own crime.

Betcha my mom wouldn’t be in the courtroom pleading for a lesser sentence. She’d be there, madder than dammit, slapping my face, shooting poison darts with her eyes, hissing venomously, “how could you be so stupid?” 

And that’s just fine.