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Ms. McTavish
By Kevin O’Kendley (2013) Darlene McTavish jumped in a cab: her twenty-two-year-old Harley was in the shop, she’d dropped it on an icy corner a week earlier, fortunately she hadn’t been injured but the bike had been pounded. When the taxi glided to a stop in front of FitzGerald’s Grocery Emporium the cabbie said: "Six smackeroos." To Darlene's surprise the meter was double-jointed or two-faced showing separate prices for males and females. The fare for women was $6.00 and the ticket for guys, $4.62. Darlene grumbled: "What the? Where in the Constitution does it"-- “Ahem. Pardon me? That’s just the way it’s always been,” inscrutable with hoodie eyes the cabbie explained briskly, “ask anyone, missy." Missy? Darlene took a deep breath, a brilliant calming technique learned from her YWCA Lamaze lessons. Though mystified as to why it was cheaper for a man to ride in a cab than a woman Darlene still shelled out a fair tip: two bucks. Inside Fitzy’s it was the same thing, the same inflammatory mystery lurked behind every price tag: milk was $4.00 for women and $3.08 for men, coffee $7.00 for women and $5.39 for men, and then the kicker, the final flipping insult, Tampons were $5.00 for women and $3.85 for men! Tampons?! Ahhhhh-- Despite being outraged -- her little clam shell ears were fire-engine red (a real warning sign) -- Darlene gently -- breathing in and out -- asked the mustachioed cashier with the pug-lumpy face, "What's going on? Y’know this is unfair -- un-American. It's flat out wrong." The cashier shrugged, and said with no small kindness, "Sorry, ma'm, but on the average women make seventy-seven cents for every buck a man makes in this country -- you do the math." -end-
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Kevin O'Kendley is the owner of Carbuncle Moon, and the author of all original material -- cartoons, blogs, shorts, essays, articles -- on the website (there has been a very limited editorial input in some of my work). All quoted sources are noted. I am responsible for all posts. The only blogs not time-dated are those advertising nonprofits. All nonprofits are vetted, investigated, though after the summer of 2018 my vetting has lapsed: (6/1/21).
Kevin O'Kendley: P.O. Box 172, Winterport, Maine, 04496, and 200 P Street, A-32, Sacramento, California, 95814, [email protected]. Technical help is provided by an evolving computer genius, my son, Conor O'Kendley: A good kid with a great heart who can be reached at P.O. Box 172, Winterport, Maine, 04496. (Conor is in the Navy now, a swabby) Photography provided by a visual artist, my daughter, Caitlin O'Kendley: a young woman with a beautiful soul. (Caitlin is in college now, a media-journalism student) If your nonprofit is advertised on this site and you wish to have it removed please contact me at the above listed snail-mail or email address or use the contact form on the website. If you download a blog, cartoon, a short story -- or for any other reason -- and wish to donate $ to this site, its author and technical support personnel, please send donations to above listed addresses payable to Kevin O'Kendley. My family and I could use the dinero. All cartoons, blogs, and short stories are for sale. Categories |
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