HEY! I'm 20 years old! TWENTY!!! It happened exactly a week ago. Yay! The first part of the day wasn't super eventful, but I went to Khan's Mongolian Barbeque with my awesome parents for dinner, so that was fun! And I had dinner with other family members during the week, as well, so that was cool.
What made me open up my computer and make another blog post was this: Last night, I was eating dinner with a guy that I like a lot and some of his really cool friends, who I'm becoming friends with too. During the midst of our conversation, own of the people who works in Anderson came over and reached above and around us to grab the napkin containers to refill them. I knew he was mentally disabled, but nonetheless I started snickering and as he walked away, I said, just loud enough for the people at my table to hear me, "Okay, dude! Okay."
I received blank stares, and the guy I like looked straight at me and said "He's mentally handicapped." I knew this already, but I just replied "Oh." When the employee returned and put the napkin dispensers on the table, I said "Thank you!", as if it would even out the fact that I had laughed at him behind his back.
I was really taken aback by the reaction that my friends had given me. They didn't say, "Don't laugh at him, he's mentally disabled; that's so rude and mean!" They just stated the obvious, but I entirely expected them to snicker too. After my friend said, "He's mentally handicapped.", I realized I expected them to act the way my old friends would have acted. Furthermore, I realized I was acting that way. It made me sick to think about it, and super ashamed. How many times do I do things like that without even thinking about it? I know that I am better than those other people, but I feel horrible right now. I am glad that he said something (it wasn't reprimanding in any way or judgmental, just like a "well, this is why he's doing that."), otherwise I would not have caught it and would continue to say things like that. I should not make fun of that guy, he's not less of a person than me in any way.
That's all I want to say.
