I called my mother. She was in good spirits, which was a change from the norm. The conversation was going well, until she started in about Jesus. Not that I have anything against Jesus, mind you. It's just that I'm not sure that he had this whole "being saved" by him thing going on. It's always the same conversation, the same up-chucked rhetoric. The same exact code Christian phrases. Again, I'm not against Jesus. I just think that perhaps his story deserves more than just a repeat of some catch phrases that he didn't even develop concerning himself or his life work. I'm not so sure about quoting people I have never met...I wasn't there to see it happen.
And true to Christian form, my mother, and countless others, always have that thing...that thing about me saving my own child...making sure that my child is exposed to it all. I haven't done that yet. And do not I believe that my child will go to hell for my lack of teaching. No, I don't think that. It starts so early, the brain washing....well, I like to think of it as soul washing. My child will be exposed to the rhetoric enough without me doing it, and hopefully, I'll be there to help him understand the difference between miracles and bullshit. We'll see.
Luckily for me, right in the middle of this long winded, lengthy, fulminated diatribe there was a ray of hope. Six white, unmarked vans with dark tented windows pulled into my neighborhood and down the street just a bit, to park. I watched with mild interest. I'm not sure what they were doing. My first thought, was that they were the fucking church people. Listening to my mother in one ear, and viewing the prospect of possible home invasion by other Jesus people, was not what I had in mind for my Saturday morning. I quickly shut my blinds and locked my doors. They can't "save" me if they can't find me. They also might have been delivery people or some type of movers or something...not cops...or anything, I lost interest in watching them.
However, I did use them as an escape from my mother's talky-talky-talk. I explained that something big must be going on down the street, so I'd better go. I'd keep her posted, but I'd better call the neighbors and try to figure this all out. She agreed. Calling the neighbors is a very time honored, small town tradition. My mother new of the sanctity of this signal, and knew that I must really hang up and attend to this matter immediately. Calling the neighbor is right up there with meeting at the property line between houses or hollering across the fence, and stopping the car and rolling down the window gig, etc. And these signals trump the meetings at the Kal-Mart, Church, and Grocery Store meetings, as they have extra security and privacy, and double as staking your claim to your own property when dealing with neighborhood caring/gossip. However, none of the above, trump such tactics as the walking the dog trick or the taking of the cake trick...those are special moves reserved for special times when special ops are needed. Alas, she hung up. Only to repeatedly call back, but I was already in motion for the day...so I didn't answer. And no, I didn't call my neighbor...I rarely use those tactics, expect for the tactic of making others believe that I need to use the above tactics to get off the phone, etc.
I was gearing up for a dinner gathering at a friend's house for another friend. I went to the store with my grocery list in hand, knowing that this grocery store would have the majority of the items that I wanted, but not everything, and I would make a second trip to a different grocery store later. Why not go to the second grocery store in the first place?!? Well, it's a bit of a weird thing for me. I really hate stores. I really hate large stores. The bright lights and all the people really feed into my anxiety levels. I know that it's an unreasonable feeling. I just don't like feeling like a deer or other small animal who's been caught in the giant headlights of the grocery story who's trying to shock me into buying the cheapest toilet paper and the best, shiniest coffee tin. It's all too much really. So, why then two stores?!? That does go into the even weirder part of my brain.
I am still not completely walking after my broken leg. I have to use the mobile carts if I'm going to make it through the entire experience without hurting for the eggs and milk I want. And the mobile carts are a bit fun; however, always dirty. Handicapped people can be rather germy, it's true. Think about all the really fat people who use them, who can't wash under every fold, or they don't have the self worth to do so. Or the half, retarded people who play with themselves, or their own crap, over their dinner table and then go to get groceries without washing their hands.
And the kids/people who work at the grocery stores don't really care that I'm taking my chances with germs by getting on the cart, I know. They don't give a fuck about you. They're already getting shit for pay to bag and carry or ring up and mop...they're not going the extra mile to spray down the gimp carts...you cannot reasonable expect that out of people.
Yeah, I know that I taking my chance with real time, real big, staph and the like germs. But, anything to avoid the agitation of my not completely healed leg yet, and the possibility of the fun of running someone over in cart anger,well, it somehow helps me through the agony of shopping in the first place.
Well, lets continue further into my own grocery store phobias.
Using the mobile cart causes not helpful looks in people, but looks of anger and annoyance. I have spent most of my life around the emotion of anger, and yes, that's unhealthy, and not the point of the story, but I am quite comfortable around anger. People get really angry with me being young and in the cart. Even though I have my cane prominently displayed, as though I need to have it displayed for a bunch of stranger, I do give them that....They will still not get why they have to walk and I don't.
Plus, I never said that you couldn't use the mobile cart. You can if you want to. It's only some weird society hang up that's preventing the extra use of non-mobility challenged people from using the mobile carts. And if you really think that you want to do it...well, why the hell not, then. It wouldn't be total grocery store anarchy if more people used them. There are some really healthy people that will always walk, because they actually like to fucking walk. So, go ahead, take a mobile cart. Just do it!Take the chance, jump in, honk the horn of mobile cart freedom!!!!
Why am I not walking?....it's all over their faces and sighs, and most of them do not observe the grocery store traffic laws and are an unruly sort to begin with. I can take this from them, as I don't know them, and I know that this grocery store is the whitetrash store, and these staring monkeys will never be anything more than what they are, so fuck 'em. It bothers me less to honk at these people or stare meanly at them, saying in the mean, handicap voice to Excuse Me. Calling attention to their rudness of the less fortunate. :) I think that in my own anger and life frustration, I rather enjoy it. (Note: My own anger in general, not my handicap anger.)
(Example: Completely and entirely and hugely fat family taking up the entire width of the isle. My thinking is, if you are that fat, in fact, your whole entire family is that fucking fat, then you shouldn't get to take up the entire width of the isle. Follow eachother in single file line like. If all the fat fucks get to take up entire isle space, with more than several carts filled with all the food taken from the box dinner isle, then I get to take the mobile cart, guilt free.)
(Example two: If you are the kids in trendy shit bag clothing with a baby on the way, and I know this cause your shirt is slightly rolled up over your belly and it tells me such, and you and your whitetrash man/boy take up the entire isle because you still think it fun to shop and play like grownups and giggle about every can of beans that you you see and you just can't decide which one will make you fart less, so you have to go back and forth, and back and forth, across each side of the isle, while giggling and choosing. Then,I get to use the mobile cart, and this time horn, guilt free. Fuck you and your man, and your baby.)
(Example Three: You're a person that doesn't speak English and totally ignores the cart traffic laws by parking your cart in the middle of every, single, fucking isle, because in whatever country you're from, shopping is a leisurely stroll, taking your time to examine all the products, and you're country doesn't even have cart traffic laws, and you feel that you can play dumb by talking in whatever native tongue you have. Well, fuck you too, I get to use the mobile cart and will honk, guilt free. Honking is the same in every language.)
At this store, I get my shopping done faster than if I have the emotional hang ups of shopping at the second store.
The second store is in the neighborhood that I might run into someone that I know, or maybe even slept with, or partied with. The trauma of having to stop the mobile cart and explain what happened, and taken in anyone's false sympathy, under the bright lights, is all too much.
I ran into this woman, once, before the leg, and she stood there and was talking at me, and I couldn't take it then. No, I didn't want her number, and no I wasn't going to call her, and I didn't care that her hair had gotten so long, and she had a great new boyfriend, and was working in film.
So, at that store I couldn't risk taking the cart. I only had a few items to get, so I could walk it without much pain, or pain.
I got home finally with all of my items, and nervously hurried to make as many things as I could, to get to the gathering on time. My significant other helped and did quite a bit of the work. I hate to cook. I really need to use that word HATE for this. And looking at all the bagged groceries, I wasn't sure why I had agreed to take this on. They all stared at me, with their tobbled over contents and disorganization...calling me to fix them all. I sat and smoked to cigarettes, back to back.
I made it over to the host's house. He had just gotten this house for himself. It was a beautiful house, and he was a great host. I busied myself preparing. Other people dropped their things off and hurried to get our friend to surprise her. The big super chocolate cake was there, the tea light after party gifts, the incense, the flowers, the scrubbed toilet. She, the friend, was surprised. Not everyone, who was there, knew this woman. But, my thought about her was : if you met her, just the one time, well, your life was more enriched from that experience...and I felt that way about everyone at this gathering. The party and food went well.
What I realized after eating and sitting around watching people, I realized what we had created. This was not just a gathering. It was a thing that was built. We were now all tied in a memory of goodness. A conglomerate of energy that was happy and flowing. We all came together with different reasons for being there, different view points, different emotions...but we were all there, in the moment, together...and we would remember this thing. There was bonding in that.
I sat smoking with one friend, out in the cold, on the porch. We giggled about poop and peach pit monkeys. She and I always giggle. I love that, and it makes me live better. These people make me live at all. That's worth taking the trip to two stores that make me not want to live at all.
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