I don’t care if your diet is anti-carb, gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian, high protein, low-fat, macrobiotic, paleo, organic, or if somehow, someway, you manage to be ALL OF THE ABOVE. I don’t care if you teach a class about it. Good for you, you have really nice skin, but I don’t care.
I don’t care if you are gay or straight. It’s cool with me either way, but honestly, I don’t care. Aren’t you GLADD I don’t’ care? See what I did there? I don’t care if you are bisexual, bi-curious, or transgender. I don’t care if you’re just a sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania. I don’t care if you are Renee Richards (the quiet pioneer) or Jeffrey Tambor (a paid pretender). I care, however, about human rights and equality. What’s good for me is good for you. It sucks when other people, people who are not you, make rules that affect you. I’m a woman so I get it. If I’m being honest, though, I care the most about the rights of children and animals since, above everyone else, they have the absolute least. They have nothing except for what comes from the hands that feed them. And if the hands that feed them are dirty or maligned, or filled with ill-intent, they can’t really do a damn thing about it except suffer.
I don’t care if you are every color in the Crayola box, or if you are just purple. I don’t care if you go to Temple, pray to God, believe in Jesus, or worship Allah. I don’t care if you are Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Atheist, Muslim, or a Scientologist. I do care if you have to wear a burka or a veil when it’s 110 degrees and when deep down inside, even though you’ve been programmed to believe a certain way, you know it sucks and your dad and your brothers don’t have to wear one, just you. Because somehow it’s evil to show your skin. I care if you’re not allowed to go to school because you have a vagina. I care if you’re not allowed to open your mouth and I care if you are allowed to open your mouth, but it’s for something other than words.
I don’t care if you are a “Brony.” For those of you who don’t know what a Brony is, it’s an adult, usually male, who identifies with, collects, plays with, and is generally aroused by the My Little Pony toys and television show. “Yes” is the answer to the question you are now asking. Bronies exist, and I’d be careful around them, but I don’t care. Whatever floats that boat, Sir.
I don’t care if you pray to a rock shaped like Jay Leno’s face in your backyard, or if you saw angels went you went under anesthesia. I don’t care if you are in the adult entertainment industry or if you just danced topless for a few years to pay your way through medical school. I mean, we’ve all done that, haven’t we?
I don’t care if Anna Wintour has an opinion. We all know that high-waist jeans suck and look terrible on everyone (especially skinny girls, which is nice for a change) so don’t even try, Anna, don’t even try.
I do care if you hurt a baby, a child, or an animal. I care if you hurt a smaller being in any way, shape or form. I care if you feel the need to belittle children, or exploit them, to ensure that they feel worthless. I don’t care if it was done to you.
I care if you lie, steal, or cheat. For example, I care if you lie about your injuries in order to steal workman’s compensation, thus cheating the company that hired you. I care if you bleed a system that has been put into place to help people who legitimately need it. I care if you steal money from my trusting grandfather, who worked and saved for over 45 years. You are not smarter than him…but you ARE disgusting for preying upon him, betting on his loneliness, forgetfulness, or his good willingness to help.
I care if you come to my door to try to convince me that the world is ending. I don’t care if you advertise your religion, or if you are actively “involved” in your religion. Good for you. But if you come to my child’s playground and hand out pamphlets about the Apocalypse, then I care. I care if your main goal in life is to brainwash children, especially girls, denying them the right to become free thinkers. Freedom to think about baseball and math. I care if your beliefs are based upon fear. I mean, honestly? You’re going to base your beliefs on what you’re afraid of?
I also care if you cut me in line, but not enough to say anything. You will get the stink eye though, big time, so count on that.
I care if you are rude or unkind. I care if you abuse or ignore elderly people. I care if you’re a shitty, neglectful, dead-beat parent. I care if you teach, preach or beseech hatred. I care if you try to sell drugs to my kids. I care if you let your friends get behind the wheel after a night of drinking. I care if YOU get behind a wheel. Because accidents happen, they do, even if you don’t mean for them to happen, even if you are sad and sorry, and YES, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE.
I care if you litter. I especially care when you throw fast-food bags out of your car window into the street. I care a lot (and I judge) if your yard is dump. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but there’s no excuse for it to look like a dump. And, speaking of such, for God’s sake, flush the damn toilet. It’s not difficult. It’s that little lever on the tank just above your right shoulder. A quick press, and viola! Try it, you’ll be amazed.
Sometimes I care if one of my socks is on inside out and sometimes I don’t. I mean, sometimes it bothers me enough to take my shoe off and go through the rigmarole of turning it back to the right side. Sometimes it’s all I can think about and I can’t just let it be.
I care when I see that your kids are not strapped into their seat belts while you are driving. You’re taking chances with their lives.
I care about keeping the frozen yogurt industry alive and well during the harsh winter months. I’ll do my part.
I care if you feel the need to yell across the store or into your cell phone in public places in order to talk to your friends. Just shut up. No one wants to hear your conversation because you are not that important. You’re not. And neither am I. Just take your selfie for Facebook or Instagram or Chatsquat or Snaptwat and move on.
I care if you grew up in a country where there is ever-increasing and plentiful (albeit not always equal) access to food, clean water, education, transportation, shelter, health and mental health care, substance abuse resources, scholarships, voting, civil and human rights, and yet still don’t get what it means to be free. I care about the constitutional freedoms…the ones that other people, people who don’t know me, who have no vested interest in me, have fought for: speech, worship, guns. I care if you don’t understand that the right to bear arms doesn’t mean you should own an oozy. I care when schools close. It’s pretty depressing when a school closes, and usually, when a school closes, the reason is pretty depressing too. I care if you live in a country with said freedoms yet you don’t know who the president is, you can’t string a grammatically correct sentence together because you quit school, or you don’t vote.
I care when people have no interest or idea about the history of their own home town. All those little old ladies painstakingly keeping track of your town’s history and yet you don’t know a single thing about it? Not anything other than “hey, that’s where the old CVS used to be.” It’s important to care about where you grew up. Especially if you grew up in Detroit. If you want to know anything about modern American history, just read about Detroit.
I care when people don’t care about these things. I care when people don’t care about any of these things, yet do care and complain when the price of their McDonald’s supersized meal goes up.
Boy, I could go on forever. You know I could say more, but I’m fairly sure, at this point, you don’t care.