Source: Reddit
I work retail in a small rural town. It is the only retail business. Both of my adult children work there as well. My daughter came out as trans a few years ago. Most of the customers have been okay about it, but there have been a few that have been not so much. One in particular has been exceedingly bad about it.
“Sticks” is an entitled little a**hole. He’s the town golden child. The other day, he was asked to put a mask on by my daughter (because that is the county mandate and businesses sort of need to follow mandates because of pesky little things like licenses and such). He immediately got rude. So I pulled him aside and explained that he could put it on or he could leave, I didn’t really care which option he chose. Instead of doing either, he started bitching about my daughter. He kept deliberately misgendering her and using her birth name. I could see a few of the customers were getting irate by his behavior because, while they may not understand what being trans means exactly, they like my daughter and could see she was visibly upset.
I had finally had enough and said “Stephen, you need to leave”. His reply was “My name is ‘Sticks’, not Stephen”. So I told him that, since he was such a fan of birth names, I will be calling him by his birth name until the end of time. Wouldn’t want to be rude and all, right? He left, and not happily.
Here is the petty revenge, even though it was inadvertent on my part and played out by other people. The other customers in the store that day are now using his given name. There are other people who weren’t there that day who are also just using his given name. He hears it when he goes to the bar. He hears it when he goes to the bank. He hears it when he goes to the cafe. I only know this because people are gleefully coming in to tell us this constantly because small rural towns are kinda weird y’all and things like this are a BIG DEAL!
Not going to lie, the pettiness of these people warms my heart. While the petty revenge is not going to change this guy, their hearts are in the right place and I love them for their attempt to protect my daughter. And they just look so damn proud of themselves when they come in to “report” the latest act.
