I Don't Judge You...Okay, I Do

I can't help it. I am a judger of people, especially stupid people, and there are a lot of them to judge. I also judge appearances. I understand the whole concept of freedom of expression through clothing and body art, I really do. However, if you have the right to think I'm a conservative mainstream idiot, I can think you dress like a sideshow looking for a circus. Still, that’s your God-given American-protected right, so knock yourself out.

I also don't judge you for your habits. If you smoke a carton a day that's your choice. You have the right to prance around smelling like a stale ashtray all you want as long as you're not in my house and I don't have to fund your habit. Now, I know there are some who see loop holes there, believing I am talking about my children, and are ready to do their little carnival acts, so allow me to add some clarification. If I am helping fund anything in your life - food, phone, gas, power, anything the government wants to freely hand out - then you better not be smoking. If you can't afford to feed yourself, you can't afford to smoke. That means food stamps, government assistance, any of it. Otherwise, puff till your heart's content. The same goes for alcohol, cable television, and the World Wide Web. I’ve known people who lived in those rent by the week efficiency hotels while collecting their welfare checks and food stamp cards as they enjoyed free internet and maid service. Welfare should be the basics, not luxuries. Clean your own hotel room.

I also don't judge your lifestyle choice. I don't care who you make out with on Friday night or how many - male, female, a combination of both taking up the same body. That's between you and whoever's throat is holding your tongue. I'll make a deal with you. You don't poke your nose into my bedroom and I won't poke anything into yours. Seriously, to think that another's lifestyle choice is in some way hurting you personally is more arrogant than even I am and way overdramatic. So, you don't agree with it. Big deal. They're not asking you to join in a threesome so relax.

I do judge the over zealous idiots who can't wait to get out of range of children before getting their freak on.

Our city has a huge Fourth of July celebration every year down on Front Street, which rests along the edge of the Indian River. People bring chairs and tables, set up canopies and portable screen rooms and make an all day event out of it, except this one couple. All they brought was a blanket, and all they did was hide under this blanket creating their own fireworks display.

Now, this is a family event; they're surrounded by kids and little puppies, old people who still don't understand how to work a rotary phone not to mention using cell phones. This is Mayberry revisited. Now, I understand that some people like a little hanky panky with the thrill of being caught, but please, not by children. The cops that pulled the blankets off of them agreed with me. I’m not the only judge, it seems.

I'll tell you who I do judge and that would be the hypocrites of this world. I feel qualified because I used to be one of them. Of course, I knew I was and didn't fake myself out, only others. That's a far cry from the pastor who called singles a leech upon a church's resources or the minister who didn't want too many of the mentally challenged in one class because it might "get the taint of being one of those classes." No, they'd smile pretty in the public face while secretly bashing those they were supposed to love.

Truth is simple, and I embrace it now like never before. Oh, not your Truth, the stuff that comes in pamphlets denying all other Truth. I'm talking honesty, being who you are regardless of the naysayers that surround you. I've taught my children this as well and each is gifted with a sixth sense bullshit detector. They know when a person is genuine and when they're merely rehearsing for a role in Armageddon.

As I said, I was just as bad, ridiculing the pastor whose church we left as a group of us passed him by on the street. Gossiping about others doing terrible deeds while I was committing my own unspeakables and faking friendship because, well as we were told, you had to like everybody. But, the truth is you don't. You don't have to like anybody really, but it makes life more enjoyable.

There is a time to worry about what people think, and there's a group close to you whose opinion you should be concerned with. However, you can worry so much that it causes you to deny who you are and live a secret life. This is where I judge you because this is where I judge myself. I almost fell into this trap again recently, worrying about what others thought. It's kind of sad really since for the most part it had to do with Facebook. Some things I wanted to post or make a crack about I withheld because of what a few on my social network would think. Then, I started looking at the people whose opinion I was worried about and realized they were the ones who taught me to be the hypocrite in the first place, and really, they didn’t matter. The only ones who do matter are the ones I love and who love me in return.

Whether anyone agrees with you or not, be honest, be who you are and tell those who are appalled by your choices to kiss your derriere. Whatever you do though, don't kiss theirs.

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