94. Lime Green Pedicure

September 6, 2023•Ep. 94•6 min 14 sec

The Little Things

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Show Notes
Transcript

This Okay listener got a surprising moment of comfort from seeing a stranger’s lime green pedicure.

About It's Going to Be OK

If you have anxiety, depression or any sense of the world around you, you know that not *everything* is going to be okay. In fact, many things aren’t okay and never will be!

But instead of falling into the pit of despair, we’re bringing you a little OK for your day. Every weekday, we’ll bring you one okay thing to help you start, end or endure your day with the opposite of a doom scroll.

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Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

INTRO MUSIC

I’m Nora McInerny, and it’s going to be okay.

Okay Caller: Hey Nora. I’m Rachel and I had a fairly heartwarming and surprising experience yesterday with a group of old men.

Okay, I’m officially intrigued. I personally love older people, so this is right up my alley.

Okay Caller: Um, for a while I was really involved in ham radio, which is, uh, primarily populated by old dudes. Some of which voted for 44 in the last election, and um, that made me feel pretty unsafe as a non-binary queer, polyamorous person.

And so I got out of the hobby and I felt pretty betrayed, honestly.

I don’t love that. But I do love a hobby. I love a niche hobby. A subculture. a group of people with a passion for something I know nothing about. If you’re wondering what HAM radio is…I only know the following because I had a neighbor — also an old man — who was involved in it. Ham radio is amateur radio that lets people talk back and forth across radio channels. It’s like…interactive podcasting? Personalized radio? It’s really cool, and if I didn’t already have a bunch of hobbies, I would take this one up.

Okay Caller: And every year, the ham radio community has a event called Field Day. And so yesterday was the annual field day for 2023. I hadn’t been to a field day in quite a few years, and so we went to a local ham radio club who was putting on an event for Field Day, me and my husband, and we walked in and about.

An hour and a half to two hours later, my husband, who had had his nails painted rainbow. Was complimented on his nails by the president of the club. And not only did this guy say, whoa, cool nails, but he then proceeded to take off his shoes and socks and show off his wine green pedicure that he had gotten the day before with his grandkids.

Did he know that he made me feel safe in the moment by doing that? No. Am I gonna ever tell him? Absolutely not, but it was just nice to be able to be surprised in a good way within a hobby that I mostly did not feel particularly safe in before 2:00 PM yesterday. So that’s my thing for, it’s gonna be okay.

It’s a small thing, but it’s an okay thing. And that’s kind of the point of this show, really. Not that every day is going to bring you the most amazing, spectacular display of human empathy, but that each day can at the very least bring you a small glimmer of okayness, a reminder that you deserve to feel safe, to feel like you belong.

Sometimes that sign is going to be an old man whipping off his shoes AND socks in public to show you his lime green pedi.

OUTRO MUSIC

CREDITS