Shopping

One day we decided to go shopping. I was looking for a pair of jeans and just needed someone to accompany me shopping. We decided to start our shopping trip at around 11 am. I went to his room and guess what, the man was not answering the door. So I left and got lunch and then came back at noon. The man again was not answering the door. I was getting upset, felt like perhaps I was getting stood up. As I was about to leave he came out. I looked confused and asked why he was not answering, he was napping. That was probably the first thing I found out about this man that was a permanent. He likes to nap. Personally I feel like a nap takes away from time that I could be doing something else.

 So finally our shopping trip began. We started off at he Gap where I must have tried on about 15 different types of jeans none I felt were "the one". I tried pairing them with shirts and I just didn't fall in love with any of them. I was looking for that perfect pair that make you feel beautiful, and gorgeous, and desirable. While we were shopping we happen to meet up with our buddies we chill with. It had been payday the previous day so it was a normal occurrence that you spent your check at the mall.

The group that had gathered consisted of mostly african americans, one hispanic, one white guy. The group was about 12 people between the ages of 18-23, a mixture of men and women, all were members of the Navy. We looked like a normal group of Young adults who had money that were shopping. As we talked we were not being extra loud just catching up on what everyone was doing at the mall and wondering if we were going to get together later on. All of a sudden about 5 security guards surrounded us and the shop owners stood outside their stores as to be protective of their merchandise.

We continued to chit chat " Does everyone notice that we were just surrounded by security guards?", I asked. Everyone shook their heads and said yes. I wondered why. We all had money there was nothing unusual about meeting up at the mall, we had bags so we obviously were shopping. As we looked around we saw another group of people on the other end of the mall. They were about the same size of ours and they were people we knew from the base, so they were navy also around the same age, the only exception to this group is that they were all white. No one was surrounding them

One of the guys finally suggested that we should just leave and go about our business in the small groups that we had arrived with. everyone agreed. So we left and that was that. It was the first time I had ever experienced anything like that. Nothing even that would appear to be racist. As I discussed this with him he explained that he was use to this. He had grown up in the south and at times  Klu Klux Klan Parades had gone through the City. I was from California where my High School had been named the most diverse High School in the US. We were definitely from 2 entirely different worlds.