i just realized that ‘love like you’ is the most sheith song thats ever existed and it continues to get more sheith as the seasons come out
like if you read it as a duet with keith singing the first four lines and verses 2 and 4 and shiro singing the others and both of them singing the outro together you are guaranteed to get feelings
i understand that my friends don’t wanna talk every day. i understand that my s/o doesn’t wanna be lovey dovey and super indulgent every day. lots of people need rest from performative emotions. all people need rest in general! it’s okay!! it doesn’t mean they don’t love me!! it’s not a judgement or punishment!! they deserve to take their rest, and they deserve for me to treat their needs with respect!
I work at a farm-themed chain restaurant as a hostess that has a ‘treat strangers like family’ motto and we are really family-time-oriented. We recently had a waitress come back after being away a few months having her baby, let’s call her Jay, so she’s slowly getting back into the swing of things and is a generally pleasant person.
We got an older couple in the restaurant tonight and from the moment they walked in they did nothing but complain - our parking lot is designed weird, our restaurant has a burnt out light in the lobby, you didn’t seat us fast enough even though we were only standing here 2 minutes while you were with another customer. So I sat them in Jay’s section as it was her turn. Jay didn’t have any other tables, she tended to the couple immediately, and put in their order in a timely manner. We take pride in making our food fresh and made to order, we’re a sit-down restaurant and not fast food, so it could take between 10 to 15 minutes to get your food because baking times or how busy we are. Tonight it was baking times, because pot pies take a couple minutes to make and about 9-10 minutes to bake.
So it’s about 10-ish minutes after Jay put in the couple’s order, I’m working on a carry-out order behind the counter, when the old woman stomps up to the breakfast bar and slams her hand on the counter multiple times to get my attention. I turn around and ask ‘how may I help you, ma'am’. She’s fuming, starts demanding to see my manager. My assistant manager (only manger on the clock at the time) was on the other side of the serving window helping our cook with the large carry-out order, so I leaned in and told her a customer wanted to see her. She took a minute coming around to the bar, so I asked the woman if there was anything I could do to help - she just stone-cold told me to stay out of it and that she was pissed off.
My AM comes around to the bar and asks what she could do to help. By this time, the couples food was coming up in the window because the pot pie they ordered had just finished baking, and Jay came around to collect it on her serving tray. The old woman started YELLING at our AM about her food taking ‘too damn long’ and ‘this is the worst service she’s ever had’ - then her old fat husband waddles up to the counter and starts yelling too. He started saying how our AM was ‘incompetent’ and saying ‘you’re they’re manager so you need to learn how to manage’ and that our restaurant is a dump. When our AM told the man he needed to calm down and that we were trying to fix any problems, the man stuck his finger in our AM’s face and said 'and you need to fire that dumb as dirt bitch of a waitress’ and started verbally threatening the rest of us staff.
At this point my AM shut that shit down. She told the man 'I will not have you speak to me or my staff like that. Get out.’ - They had a hissy fit when she told them to leave, but she started marching around the breakfast bar to escort them out herself and they all but ran out the door away from her. We checked to see if Jay was alright because she heard the whole argument, but she’s just happy they left because they were also very rude to her while ordering and calling her degrading names. Since the customer’s food was done and would go to waste cause it was almost the end of the night, we all split the food - Jay ate the pot pie.
Afterwards my AM just steamed the rest of the night and at one point went into the office to time the camera footage to see just how long they waited… it hadn’t even been 10 minutes from when the order was put in to when the order hit the window. The couple were just assholes.
A while back I was sitting by the restaurant in Ikea and using my phone while I waited for Marvin to buy some things.
I was seated at one of four high-backed chairs arranged around a low coffee table. Across the table from me was a stranger, his young son sat in the chair to the right of me, and his daughter, who was about nine-years-old, sat on the floor at the coffee table. She was colouring and her brother was playing on a DS.
Their father stared at me while pretending he wasn’t. It’s pretty obvious when someone is watching you from eight feet away, though. I didn’t get angry vibes so I wasn’t concerned and just pointedly ignored him while catching Pidgey after Pidgey.
My phone had a semi-transparent, soft plastic case on it. I usually covered it with cute stickers. At that time, it had large words written in sharpie on the back that said, “It’s rude to stare”.
I was absorbed in my game when the stranger across from me laughed suddenly, loudly, and pointed me out to his daughter.
“Her phone says, ‘It’s rude to stare’,” he said.
He chuckled and looked at my face, expecting an explanation.
I stared at him.
He stared back.
I sighed.
“Oh, yeah. People stare at me a lot,” Just like you were, I thought. I waved my phone to show off the words. “So I wrote that on there. So, yeah.”
I went back to my game. Guy chuckled again.
“Really, people stare at you? Why?” He asked.
I looked up from my phone. I stared at him.
He stared back. I raised my eyebrows. He kept waiting for an answer.
I held up the butterfly-printed cane that had been leaning against my legs by way of explanation. “Sometimes I use a walker or wheelchair, too.”
“And people stare?” He pressed.
“Yep,” I said shortly.
“Wow. Well, you know, I think it’s probably because of their own personal fear.”
I seriously bristled at that. The tone was awful, really patronizing.
“Yeah. Seeing disabled people in public is a real shock. We remind people of their own mortality,” I said humourlessly, adding in some sarcastic laughter for good measure. I tried to signal my disinterest by lowering my head and leaning over my phone screen.
“Yeah-” he said, charging full speed ahead like he didn’t even need me for this conversation. He clearly had something to say all prepared.
“And you know, it’s funny. But I used to be scared of- people- people with disabilities,” he said, with a smile and lean-in, touching his fingertips together, making me want to punch his face.
I was in a bit of social shock. I just kept thinking, are you kidding me? This Ikea food court confession is happening right now, huh?
“Not physical disabilities, but mental disabilities.”
He was so smarmy, you guys. When he said that, I think my soul left my body. And I had no idea how to either respond or extricate myself reasonably.
I hesitated, looked from this guy to his children, who were watching the exchange with awkward interest.
“Oh. Uh. Well, I’m autistic, so…” I let my words trail off. To this day I have no idea where that sentence would have gone.
“Oh. Oh! But I mean, you can’t tell,” he turned tomato red. “You’re so well-spoken and- I guess you could say that you have really overcome.”
As he was fumbling, I was giving him an exaggerated but sincerely felt grimace and an unimpressed “ehhh”.
At his pronouncement of my overcoming, I sat up straight and said, loudly and pissed enough that his children started looking worried, “Uh, yikes. No.”
Guy’s daughter looked like she would rather he did anything but continue talking, but that’s what he did. Like any allistic abled white dude worth his salt /s, he powered through, ignoring my obvious and projected displeasure.
“But, I mean. In school, it’s funny, because it ended up that most of my friends were handicapped. I guess I kind of protected them-” His voice took on an artificially soft, sticky quality. It was at this moment that I snapped.
“Okay. I’m going to cut you off there,” I said. I put my hand up. His tomato face spoiled.
“What? Why?” He seemed torn between expressing frustration and wanting to appear kind-hearted and open-minded in front of his children.
“Well. Uh. Ugh,“ I looked at his kids, wondering how harsh or how kind I should be. I hated that he put me in this spot. In that moment I hated him so much.
“Well, you’re saying a lot of stuff that non-disabled people think is nice to hear, but it’s not. It’s just- it’s just not.” I knew it was pointless to try to explain. My words were failing fast. He didn’t really care, anyway.
“I wouldn’t even be able to explain it to you,” I shrugged.
He gaped at me. Now he was angry. This wasn’t going how he had wanted it to.
“I know you’re coming from a good place. But it’s not nice. It’s just not… yeah.” I gripped the handle of my cane in one hand and my phone, Pokémon Go forgotten, in the other. I fought the urge to literally run away. I felt the surreal pressure of my behaviour being one of these kids’ formative disability-related experiences.
“Oh. Uh. Well. Okay. Sorry,” he said, embarrassed, not sorry. “And uh, thanks for saying that,” he said, trying to get me back. I looked away.
“I just-” he started. Even his children looked unhappily surprised that he was trying for that last word.
“I just want to say that you’re great.”
I didn’t look at him. I smiled at his daughter, who smiled back out of habit, more confused than anything. His son looked down at his DS, secondhand embarrassment turning him red too.
“Hmm. Well, your kids seem nice,” I offered breezily.
After that, I moved away from the circle of green chairs and sat in an uncomfortably high stool in the corner. I hid there, head down, my hands shaking very slightly, feeling paranoid. Like I failed. And that my friends, is ableism.
