Friday, April 29, 2016

Replacing China in North Carolina

The Page-Frederiksen Family
(of North Carolina)
My friend Sandy asked me if I knew about this organization called Replacements, Ltd.  Raved about it. 

They found and replaced pieces from a dishware set I purchased in 1996. If they don't have what you're looking for, they keep your request on hold; and lo and behold! a year and a half later, when you've given up hope you get an email communication saying they managed to track down one of what you were looking for. And they're not expensive. If the item is used or returned, you get it for less than the original price and it arrives in perfect shape.

Not speaking my language, I says to myself.  Fine China and me, we ain’t friends.  My spousal unit and I outdo each other washing wine glasses by hand because we are afraid they will break in the dishwasher – and then we break them.  Without a constant cheap supply from IKEA we’d be drinking our wine out of jam jars.

But then I scrolled down and saw this couple surrounded by three teen-age boys.  Two born in Vietnam they've raised since they were little ones, one from Nigeria who joined the family last year.  A gay couple who have been together for twenty-seven years.  That’s six years longer than my husband and I have been together.   We got married two and a half years ago; they got married last year.  I feel a strong sense of connection.  They don’t have our two dogs to call daughters, but those three boys look happy and well cared for.  Looks like family to me.

Then I read that they run their business from North Carolina.  And I thought, oh shit, people are going to be boycotting them.

Hope people will learn to distinguish between happy families running a good family business and a few bigoted politicians like North Carolina State Senator Buck Newton who is stomping around the state urging his supporters to help “keep the state straight.”

His original problem was with transgendered men (have I got it wrong - don't they tend to look like men more than they look like women most of the time?) trying to use the men’s room when they still have a vagina.  Apparently he hadn’t thought this through and they were going to have to station a cop outside the rest room to check for wee-wees before they let you in.  

But that silliness aside, passing laws against the T people in LGBT is apparently not enough.  He wants a law saying there will be no protections from discrimination for the LGBs as well.  No doubt he channels the higher powers on this issue, and they tell us their rules should be everybody’s rules.  I know the old story.  What a pack of cards.

Keep North Carolina straight.  Now there’s a concept.

Hope old Buck never needs a piece of his wedding China replaced.



photo credits


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