Grocery Store Assholes

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.

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.

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.

To Pee or Not To Pee *

* A thousand apologies for the completely overplayed allusion in the title. But it is, indeed, the question.

Last week Bob and I journeyed to the new Durham Performing Arts Center to see the legendary Willie Nelson. It was a great show and Willie delivered far beyond what I expected from a man who has spent as many years as he has traveling the country high on a bus.

We were delighted to see copious drinking options at the new venue as well as permission to take libations to our seats. And so it was that we settled in to the fourth and fifth seats of Orchestra row Q with 24-ounce cans of Miller Lite in our hands. Willie's backing band, "Asleep at the Wheel", also served as his opening band and they performed toe-tapping yee-haw country for a good 30-40 minutes before the diminutive headliner joined them on stage. When Willie finally joined the stage it was pretty much the exact moment that I realized I needed to pee.

Seeing there would be no break between the opening music and the music we came to hear, I figured perhaps Willie's age would grant us all a set break. So I waited. And looked at my watch. And slowly began to accept that there would be no break, that any bathroom trip would have to be a rogue one, stepping out at the critically appropriate moment, over the feet and laps of strangers, scurrying up the rows trying not to obstruct the view, undoing the belt on the way to the stall, and peeing/buckling/flushing/washing (no time for drying) as fast as possible so as not to miss whatever classic song it would turn out to be that the crowd cheered for as I sat on the porcelain throne.

Of course, just as I accepted that I now really had to pee and there would be no set break, Willie switched from the new stuff that everyone politely clapped for to the greatest hits portion of the night. I pushed my pee thoughts aside momentarily to enjoy You Were Always on My Mind, swayed along with Crazy, agreed I wouldn't let my babies grow up to be cowboys, tried not to picture the opening scenes from Designing Women as he sang Georgia and decided that now, no matter what, whatever the next song was, I was going to have to pee. (all song titles referenced here are obviously lacking in accuracy and are only what I think the song is called).

And then Willie started playing On the Road Again. Now really, how can you pay $65 to see Willie Nelson - $65! - and leave the theatre as he's playing On the Road Again? That would just be ridiculous. And so I waited.

Not choosing to leave the theatre so as not to miss a good song is the saner side of my pee-holding. But I have to admit here that there was also a social anxiety element at play - the paralyzing power of those three strangers between myself and the exit aisle. It wasn't as simple as getting up and going - it would involve "excuse me, pardon me, oops, sorry, thank you, oof...", not once, but twice. Even though this was a concert, it was a sitting concert, and a sitting concert with older people, people who settle in and get their coats adjusted and glare at you in a "damn kid" sort of way when you have to jostle by them to go pee out the 24-ounce beer that they judged harshly in your hand when you first sat down. At one point the guy inside of me, further from the aisle, got up and myself, Bob, and the three strangers all stood up to let him by. I knew I should go then, to limit the rustling of the row by just sneaking through with him, while the pee-denying strangers were already standing. But I balked and missed my moment, hesitating because I considered that myself and Metro Blazer Guy would come back separately, thereby disturbing the triad of aisle defenders too many times. I missed the perfect moment to go, overthinking to pee or not to pee.

In the end, I clapped and cheered and Willie encored and wowed, but only ten percent of me was enjoying the show. Ninety percent of me was thinking pee, pee, pee, pee, pee, pee. It made me wonder how much of my life I have spent missing out, not fully being able to enjoy the experience in front of me because of the nagging persistence of my bladder. It seems inevitable at concerts and movies, frequent on car rides, unbearable on airplanes during landing when I waited too long and now we're quarantined to our seats. It seems only fair that with the majority of time I apparantly spend thinking about bathroom trips, I at least give it a few moments' thought here.

And I wonder now, after reading this tale, how many of you may have to pee?

An Allegory

As I have commented in an earlier post and demonstrated in a few, I enjoy and often find metaphorical meaning in literal actions or statements - like searching for meaning in running with cheese or walking on frozen footsteps. Sometimes the converse happens as well and I was struck last evening by the walking demonstration of a commonly thrown about adage.

I am surprised now to find that the phrase I will be referencing originates in the Bible (and not at all surprised that I wasn't able to recognize it as such). The Biblical origins of the enacted simile are all the more humorous to me as my story takes place in a smoky, drunken bar - a wonderful place for Tuesday night Guinness on special, but perhaps one that doesn't often inspire Bible quotes.

At the table behind my group of imbibement sat a heavily smoking trio of drinkers. My back was to the group of three women and I didn't notice much about them other than the irritating level of noxious fumes floating over the booth wall until the patrons arose and readied to leave the bar. In the hand of each woman was a long, slender cane and two of the women placed large, dark glasses over their eyes. They then stood in a line, each holding a cane with one hand and a friend's shoulder with the other.

I couldn't stop my amazed mind from silently screaming over and over, "The blind leading the blind. The blind leading the blind!" I didn't have time to really think about the phrase and explore or acknowledge that it is not often quoted as a celebration of the resourcefulness of the unsighted, but instead as a warning about the dangers of the unenlightened leading the unenlightened. Before my mind grabbed at the connotation denoted to "the blind leading the blind", the metaphorical danger was literally enacted in front of me, as the second woman in the trio (both a blind follower and a blind leader), smacked face front into a wall. The blind (or, one assumes, the semi-sighted, as she was placed in front and wore eyeglasses) leader failed to communicate the sharpness of the turn out the door either with words or her body movement and the second woman failed to angle her body sharply enough for the egress.

I don't mean in any way to indicate that I found pleasure or humor in the path of these women and I felt guilty witnessing the wall bonk, but I still can't get over my amazement of the perfect literal enactment of the blind leading the blind. It is, indeed, a dangerous thing. And, if it not so wordy and perhaps offensive to the original Biblical meaning, I would add a caveat that it is even more dangerous for the drunken blind to lead the drunken blind.

Literary Fears

I hate used books. At my poorest as a graduate student, when buying a six-pack of tall boys was splurging, I bent my will to the savings offered by previously read editions, but it was only out of financial desperation. Given my true druthers, I would only touch the fresh crisp pages of new publishing, would only smell the chemical airs escaping from shrink-wrapped volumes, and would only scan my eyes across pristine pages free of smudge, crumb, or dog-ear.

This, dare I admit, 'obsession' with new books certainly has no roots in my childhood. My mother is a librarian for god's sake - you can only imagine how much of my childhood was spent in a library, touching, reading, smelling, holding, loving library books. No Saturday errand run was complete without choosing a stack to check out and take home. My own personal after-school program was spending hours playing treasure hunt with the card catalog and no other place in the world offers more feelings of safety and love to me than my mom's library.

But yet, I can barely stomach touching used books. On the rare occassions in my adult life that I have frequented a library for the purposes of recreational fiction, my selections were based more heavily on which books were freshly carded and shelved than what was highly lauded. It's quite possible that my research endeavors were subconsciously shaped by this aversion to older volumes as well, rationalized in my head as an attempt to capture the most recent research on a topic. Perhaps I even would have been able to finish my PhD if I hadn't been so averse to spending extended time with the highlights and underlinings of strangers.

One might argue that used academic books offer not only financial savings, but also a built in cliff's notes of a sort since the important sections are already marked. One might argue this if one also does not assume that most everyone else in the world is an idiot. I never had any faith that the anonymous student before me offered any value with his or her highlighting, underlines, or notes. Perhaps used academic books should come with a description of the previous owner's class performance, so we could tell better if the A-student's notes are of value or if the C-student's highlights should be categorically ignored.

Not only do you have to ignore the previous readers' scribbles, but you have to add your own on top or around. Last year's slacker used a yellow highlighter, so now I must pull out the too vivid green one, the pepto-y pink one, or, worst of all, the neon blue one. Color chaos on the page! Yellow, blue, and then those necessary times when I must trace my blue highlight over yesteryear's yellow highlight and the basic laws of primary colors add green to my page. Yellow, blue, and green? It's just too much to take.

While the marks of strangers appall my senses, nothing delights me more than writing in my own books. Writing in MY books. Adding MY thoughts. Underlining MY quotes of value. Recording a living diary of how I experienced these pages, where my eyes rested longer, where my mind struggled out an interpretation that needed to be noted. A squiggly line under the words of greatest import, brackets around a bit that I don't quite understand, and the audacious exclamation point in the margin when I find the deepest meat of it all, when the author offers me the thought at the very root of all the words around it.

So here I digress into my love of books, a much more satisfying and fulfilling exploration perhaps than my fear of stranger's germs, but I must get back to my primary point. My primary point being, of course, that used books are icky. There may well be some law of nature that requires readers to hold either chocolate or peanut butter over the course of reading a new book. What else could explain the preponderance of smudgy fingerprints in library books? And why, oh god why, is it so hard for people to find bookmarks? Is there no scrap of paper in your home? No magazine laying about, no grocery store receipt? Please, I beg of you world, stop folding pages. If you are absolutely incapable of finding your place again at the beginning of Chapter Three, then you probably don't understand the plot anyway.

I have forced myself to explore this issue here today to try to understand why in my unemployed state I allowed myself to spend thirty dollars at Barnes and Noble today (throw in chastisement that I didn't spend this money at a locally-owned, independent bookseller) when there is a perfectly good library down the street. I can't even claim that I buy my own copies out of a desire to keep them for my own library. While of course I love having books around and covet my copies of Tolkein, Dumas, Shakespeare, an academic life long ago cured me of the need to keep every book.

I will just have to hope that when the savings account shrinks, my dear librarian mother who knowingly accepts these minor psychoses of mine will continue to aid and abet my love of new books.

TMI (too much information)

I went through four pairs of underwear today. Now, before you turn away in disgust, let me promise you that there will be no mention of human fecal matter, urine issues, or even girl stuff, in the paragraphs below. And, if you are disappointed by that turn, I sincerely apologize; I am sure there are other blogs out there that might better cater to your interests.

The first two are easy enough to account for. Woke up in a pair, showered, and dressed in a clean pair - pretty standard daily underwear use.

I had to change into a third pair after being caught in a monsoon. Well, to be fair, it was just some rain, but monsoon sounds much more dramatic and even a downpour doesn't encourage accurate images of how wet I became.

It's all the dog's fault. Or, my dog-related guilt. The poor pup continued to look so cute and plaintive about having an outdoor adventure that I agreed to take him for a walk around the lake despite the color of the sky. I like to let him decide the direction at crossroads, although he is such a good dog he waits for the person walking him to lead the way. Today he seemed to know I was trying to short-change him though and immediately chose the long way when I paused to let him point out a direction.

I had set a goal of the next bend to turn around when the trees and the sky and the motion and the air signaled quite clearly that even the next bend was too far. It seemed the exact second I turned around to head back to the car, I turned into a wall of rain. It was refreshing, walking through the dramatic storm, except for the soaked jeans, sloshy shoes, and that tiny hint of danger that always screams out inside girls about the risks of being alone in the woods.

It's amazing how much water comes off a dog in that shake-shake-shake rhythm that zigs down their bodies. Unfortunately, you can really tell how much water flies off the dog - in all directions - when those shake-shake-shakes occur in the backseat of your car. Wow. What a freaking mess. When we made it home I toweled him off, toweled me off, changed into what I'm sure you now recognize as the third pair of underwear, and toweled off the car. I had intended to stop at the store on the way back from our walk, so I headed out in dry gear to pick up dinner ingredients.

And that's when I was just stupid. All that effort to dry off me, dry off the dog, and dry off everything the dog touched or sprayed, and I stupidly sat right down on the wet driver's seat that my previously soaked bottom had dampened. I didn't realize it until I got to the store and was walking towards the door, feeling the wet and looking back to see that my light gray pants were made of the sort of material that screams out wetness by turning a completely different dark color, hinting to strangers that I may well have wet my pants.

And so, despite sitting on a shopping bag for the return trip, upon my arrival home I also arrived at my fourth pair of the day. It's 10:00pm now and I'm trying to remain confident I'm going to hold it to four. Otherwise, tomorrow is definitely laundry day.