Pink States, Yellow States, and Rainbows

Everyone I know is tired of the latest election cycle, fiscal crisis, et al. Mostly I feel invaded by the loud, insistent, and seemly urgent demands for my attention.

I also hate being a demographic. Red state, middle-aged, middle-class, southern, suburban, protestant, self-employed, mother of two, married.

The loud and urgent seem to think my group needs a great deal of guidance. I have been very tired of being told what I must think/feel/do.... I don't want to be classified, or whatever the verb form for demographic might be ... demographed, demographified?
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Then, right in the middle of Kroger, I had an epiphany. I know... Kroger... just screams middle-class/age/mom.

I blinked and the world turned pink. Shoppers and workers dressed in pink. Shelves lined in specially packaged pink products. Pink candy, yogurt, cereal, and all of those wrist bands. The whole city turns pink for the Koman Race for the Cure, and it's grown from there. Y'all, the loud and self-important doesn't always win. The world changes with the small, the modest, the quiet, and the humble things in life. I'd been swimming in all this goodness and never saw or heard. Yogurt lids, women walking together.


And in October, we also turn Yellow with Lance Armstrong and the Ride for the Roses. Every year we celebrate cancer survivors and commit to eliminating cancer from our lives forever. remembering this helps make all the noise finally go away. Good things happen all the time. Good people do the right thing.



And during Pride, we turn the whole city into a rainbow. The lights are almost as cool as the people!













So I've decided my new demographic is is Pink/Yellow/and Rainbow. Plus, we have all these cool wrist bands.


A young man, about 19-20, was my cashier at the Kroger of the Epiphany. He had pink and yellow wrist bands on one arm and a rainbow band on the other. I wanted to tell him how proud I was of him and how proud his parents must be. What a great kid. But I didn't. I doubt he would have wanted an old lady patting him on the head.


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