I am my father's daughter when it comes to people avoidance: ATMs, pay-at-the-pump, online registrations, scan-it-yourself express lines...all cater to those of us who would prefer to get most of our business done without the necessity of interaction with strangers. When I was scouting out furniture stores looking at new sofa possibilities, I tried and tried but always failed to get in the door and past the scrum of waiting salespeople without the obligatory (hoping for your commission) introductory attack:
"Are you looking for anything particular today?"
Just looking, thanks.
"Well we're having a big sale right now, blah diddy blah blah..."
Okay, thanks.
"I'll let you walk around for a bit and will check in with you later. Let me know if you need anything, I'm Phil."
Thanks, Phil.
and then, sigh, obligatory handshake. Not only forced chatter with strangers but forced touching with strangers.
My boyfriend anticipated these uncomfortable conversations much more savvily than I, choosing to don a ratty concert t-shirt with some sort of skull graphic along with not-the-freshest of pants. I made the mistake of showering and automatically became the target for every Phil's best-sale-ever diatribes.
So I'm not the sort of person who looks for conversational openings with strangers, who chucks a "wow, long line" to others queing, who queries "wonder when it will stop raining" of unknowns. I keep my head down, always avoid eye contact, and couldn't be any more in love with the scan-it-yourself line at the grocery store (although this love also speaks to my childhood fascination with playing 'store').
I'll engage in the necessary pleasantries with an appropriate smile to well-meaning strangers, but I was taken aback at the grocery store this weekend when smug-middle-aged-guy commented on my outfit. Apparantly he was offended, or just-jokingly-offended, by my sartorial expression of fandom. On the day that UNC was playing in the Elite Eight, while I was in the home state of UNC, while I was twenty miles from UNC, while I continued to be a UNC graduate, I dared wear a UNC t-shirt. To the grocery store!
Now, the twenty mile distance I live from Chapel Hill happens to place me in Raleigh, home to NC State University. I can only assume smug-middle-aged-guy-loitering-around-the-bread was a State fan, and a Carolina hater, as he stared at me and said "It takes a loyal fan to wear a shirt like that in these parts".
As we all know, in situations like this the witty and scathing and brilliant comebacks occur to you long after the exchange is over. If I had it to do all over again I would have said something along the lines of "Oh, is State playing today?" or "Did State make the NCAA tournament?" or, most harshly "Huh, I didn't think State even made the NIT". But, I'm not a hater. I don't have anything against State. When UNC plays them, I want the Tarheels to win, but that is the extent of my feelings for or against the Wolfpack.
So I was, as I said, taken aback that this random stranger who is a fan of a team whose season has ended and is not in the tournament would openly attack me for support of a team with a number one seed in the tournament, playing that day. Like by cheering for my alma mater, located just down the road, I was spitting in the face of Raleigh State fans. And as jokingly as he may have believed he meant it, his words, as written above, are nothing short of a threat. Like I could get my ass kicked for such an offense? And really, "in these parts"? Like we're in some dangerous wild west where offending the local gang could get me killed?
Not having the benefit of witty timing in this situation, I responded to his - I'm gonna go ahead and call it a threat - I responded to his threat with a friendly smile and "You gotta represent." To which he derisively sneered "You sure are with that shirt" as if my outfit was some insane glorification of fandom, and not a simple blue t-shirt with "Carolina" written on it.
All I wanted was some fucking bread, dude. I didn't come to the grocery store to have an ACC battle of fan loyalties while my rosemary olive oil loaf was being sliced. Not to mention the raging bachelorette party hangover I was pushing my way through to pick up some gametime snacks. So fuck off. That's what I should have said - skipped right past the State jibes, looked him in the face, and just said Fuck Off Asshole.
Wow, that would have been awesome.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Covered in Flour
I had a moment today when I was so pleased with the image I had of myself; I was delighted to see that I had become the sort of person who decided to whip up a loaf of bread as if it was no big deal.
While patting myself on the back for being this sort of handy, crafty, homey creator, I neglected to acknowledge the other images of myself that I have seen over and over again: that I am the sort of person who realizes halfway through mixing that she's out of an ingredient, that I am the sort of person who misses a step in the ingredients, and chiefly, that I am the sort of person that hates the feel of flour.
I decided to try to put aside my uneasiness and discomfort with the grainy feel of that white magnetic powder because my kitchen looked so pretty with my cookbook perched in a book holder, opened to the photo and recipe for "simple white bread". I glanced in my flour cannister and confidently guesstimated that I could provide the requested 4 1/2 cups for the dough. It was only when I fell slightly short of the last half cup that I realized I was supposed to have an additional half a cup to fold in while kneading the bread, and additionally needed the amount necessary to flour my surface for multiple kneadings, along with my rolling pin and dough-encased hands.
I "kneaded" anyway, without the extra flour additions. I reference kneading here in quotes because what I did was much closer to molestation. Without extra flour to stop the dough from sticking, I just squished and squashed the mass between my hands. The recipe instructed me to knead until the dough was smooth and elastic, and not sticking to my hands. I tried to ignore the final detail and scraped the globs from between my now-webbed fingers, with no idea what smooth and elastic dough should look like.
My original bread baking inspiration and pride in myself was based on my decision that I needn't drive to the store to pick up bread to have with dinner - I could just bake a homemade loaf! Shocking confidence, really, given the fact that I had previously only baked one brick of heavy dough where far more ended in the compost than in our bellies. Having decided it would be easier, and I guess more fun, to bake a loaf at home than go to the store, I had to stop my three-hour process of bread-making to drive the four minutes to the grocery store down the road and buy a bag of flour.
My intention was to enjoy fresh bread with last night's reheated leftovers, a worthy goal that I would have realized wasn't feasible if I had read the recipe more carefully and calculated the second hour of rising - putting bread readiness around 9:15pm.
It has, at least, turned out to be a pretty tasty dessert.
While patting myself on the back for being this sort of handy, crafty, homey creator, I neglected to acknowledge the other images of myself that I have seen over and over again: that I am the sort of person who realizes halfway through mixing that she's out of an ingredient, that I am the sort of person who misses a step in the ingredients, and chiefly, that I am the sort of person that hates the feel of flour.
I decided to try to put aside my uneasiness and discomfort with the grainy feel of that white magnetic powder because my kitchen looked so pretty with my cookbook perched in a book holder, opened to the photo and recipe for "simple white bread". I glanced in my flour cannister and confidently guesstimated that I could provide the requested 4 1/2 cups for the dough. It was only when I fell slightly short of the last half cup that I realized I was supposed to have an additional half a cup to fold in while kneading the bread, and additionally needed the amount necessary to flour my surface for multiple kneadings, along with my rolling pin and dough-encased hands.
I "kneaded" anyway, without the extra flour additions. I reference kneading here in quotes because what I did was much closer to molestation. Without extra flour to stop the dough from sticking, I just squished and squashed the mass between my hands. The recipe instructed me to knead until the dough was smooth and elastic, and not sticking to my hands. I tried to ignore the final detail and scraped the globs from between my now-webbed fingers, with no idea what smooth and elastic dough should look like.
My original bread baking inspiration and pride in myself was based on my decision that I needn't drive to the store to pick up bread to have with dinner - I could just bake a homemade loaf! Shocking confidence, really, given the fact that I had previously only baked one brick of heavy dough where far more ended in the compost than in our bellies. Having decided it would be easier, and I guess more fun, to bake a loaf at home than go to the store, I had to stop my three-hour process of bread-making to drive the four minutes to the grocery store down the road and buy a bag of flour.
My intention was to enjoy fresh bread with last night's reheated leftovers, a worthy goal that I would have realized wasn't feasible if I had read the recipe more carefully and calculated the second hour of rising - putting bread readiness around 9:15pm.
It has, at least, turned out to be a pretty tasty dessert.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Little Brats
Last week I had the great pleasure to spend some time with my 3 1/2-year old niece - and, as I love her and she's mine, she's of course not in any way associated with "little brats". OTHER people's kids are little brats. And it was interacting with them that made me realize I automatically assume as such.
Kara and I enjoyed some time in the sunshine at the park. While Kara climbed on the playground apparatus, I sat on the retaining wall around the edge. At one point, a 5-year-oldish-looking boy walked along the wall right up to me, I think even stubbing me with his feet, and said "Uh oh!". The boy had apparently decided he was a train, and from his ramble it appears he believed he was some sort of 'ghost train', and here I was sitting on the track he was traveling around. I think the boy assumed with his "uh oh", standing right on top of me, and the explanation of the ghost train's needs, I would of course get off the track and let him proceed.
It struck me later what it says about me that I didn't get up. It would have taken a modicum of effort to stand up, lift my purse and Kara's sweatshirt from the wall next to me, and let this little boy pass. But still, I held my ground, listened to the boy's incomprehensible story, and waited for him to give up. I don't know if I would have stood up for Kara - probably. I would have thought her using the wall as a train track was incredibly cute and likely would have been recording the whole thing.
Somehow my refusal to stand and the extended interaction it caused between us led this kid to believe I was playing with him. When I crossed paths with him later, checking on a 'whooops' trip that caused Kara to cry and need a hug but of course not to stop playing, the little boy stopped me by physically grabbing my hand and proceeded to regale me for five minutes with tales of Power Rangers and something that sounded like Tai Chi. If this had been a guy in a bar, I would have used my best "I have no desire to talk to you" stare of disinterest, but as it was a 5-year old, I felt obligated to "um hmm" and "oh, really?" and fake my way through understanding and caring what he had to say.
He was a decent kid and probably thinking of him as a little brat is a bit harsh, but that he had the gall to assume I would move for HIM? And that I should listen to HIM babble? It's not the sort of behavior I enjoy in adults and I think I apply the same standards to little kids (except for my darling, precious, never wrong Kara). Or I'm just a jerk, which is sort of how I felt when I thought back to my refusal to get out of the ghost train's way.
Kara and I enjoyed some time in the sunshine at the park. While Kara climbed on the playground apparatus, I sat on the retaining wall around the edge. At one point, a 5-year-oldish-looking boy walked along the wall right up to me, I think even stubbing me with his feet, and said "Uh oh!". The boy had apparently decided he was a train, and from his ramble it appears he believed he was some sort of 'ghost train', and here I was sitting on the track he was traveling around. I think the boy assumed with his "uh oh", standing right on top of me, and the explanation of the ghost train's needs, I would of course get off the track and let him proceed.
It struck me later what it says about me that I didn't get up. It would have taken a modicum of effort to stand up, lift my purse and Kara's sweatshirt from the wall next to me, and let this little boy pass. But still, I held my ground, listened to the boy's incomprehensible story, and waited for him to give up. I don't know if I would have stood up for Kara - probably. I would have thought her using the wall as a train track was incredibly cute and likely would have been recording the whole thing.
Somehow my refusal to stand and the extended interaction it caused between us led this kid to believe I was playing with him. When I crossed paths with him later, checking on a 'whooops' trip that caused Kara to cry and need a hug but of course not to stop playing, the little boy stopped me by physically grabbing my hand and proceeded to regale me for five minutes with tales of Power Rangers and something that sounded like Tai Chi. If this had been a guy in a bar, I would have used my best "I have no desire to talk to you" stare of disinterest, but as it was a 5-year old, I felt obligated to "um hmm" and "oh, really?" and fake my way through understanding and caring what he had to say.
He was a decent kid and probably thinking of him as a little brat is a bit harsh, but that he had the gall to assume I would move for HIM? And that I should listen to HIM babble? It's not the sort of behavior I enjoy in adults and I think I apply the same standards to little kids (except for my darling, precious, never wrong Kara). Or I'm just a jerk, which is sort of how I felt when I thought back to my refusal to get out of the ghost train's way.
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