So I’m working this dinky part time job at a discount retail store with a bunch of high school kids and retirees.
It’s not a career move or very challenging, except when I’m playing the role of cashier and I forget to actually look at what the little numbers on the money say, but it’s a job. It’s a minimum wage, give me some cash while I find something better, name tag required job.
On the plus side I get to play with the markdown machine a bunch and I enjoy it much more than I should. Maybe it’s a throwback to my favorite stickerbooks when I was little, but scanning and beeping and stickering stuff is my idea of a good time.
Anyway, I was marking down purses one day (which ALL Virginians seem call “pocket books,” not just the old ladies like in NEPA) and a tall, handsome black man walked up to me. He smiled, said something about me looking “fine,” and asked for my help. He lead my over to shoes and picked up two pairs of almost identical black sneakers.
“Which do you like better” he asked me.
I pointed to the ones on the right.
“I like those better.”
“Oh really? Well, see, I had to ask because I wanted to know what I should wear when I take you out.”
I admit, I probably blushed. I’ve never been hit on much and I doubt it will change anytime in the future since I’m sporting a very noticeable diamond on my left hand. So, of course I was enjoying the momentary attention, though had he continued with much persistence I would have called a manager.
Then he noticed my ring.
“Damn girl, you married?”
I always lie. It’s easier than saying “No, not yet. Just engaged.” And, I mean, for all general purposes I’m basically married so whatev.
“Yea. Sorry.”
“It’s ok. Damn, you are fine though. Well, in any case, here,” he pulls out a square sheet of paper from his pocket. It’s a flier to a restaurant, “take your husband out to this place one night. I’m the cook there. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
And then I realized, that I was not being hit on. I was being advertised to.
And suddenly I felt like the naive girl in Teen dramas who thinks The Jock who was doubled dogged dared to ask her is out is actually interested in her. It was kinda a blow to the self esteem.
But, then I went home and had Kevin Bacon sex with The Boy.
Esteem restored.
I Win.
Congrats Jean and Matt!
Because This Is More Interesting Than My Whining August 13, 2009
When Matt got the phone call his heart seemed to stop.
The words played over and over in this head like flashcards.
Accident.
Sasha.
Tractor Trailer.
Accident.
Sasha.
His hand shook as he drove to the hospital. He couldn’t be this unlucky. He made this same drive under these same circumstances- late night, raining, winter, less than a year ago. A week later he was carrying his older brother’s casket to his grave. He couldn’t lose Tim and Sasha. He just couldn’t.
Sasha, the petite Italian girl his mother loved as much as he did. She was his ray of light in the darkness of the past year, holding him for hours when he cried over the loss of his older brother. He didn’t mind crying in front of Sasha. She was gentle and warm and thought his mother’s home video-taping obsession was cute, not annoying. She stood smiling for the camera at every one of Matt’s games. At every holiday gathering. At every miniscule little event in his life for the last two years. She was his angel in Old Navy jeans. Oh God, not was, is.
Is. Is. Is. Is.
She is his angel. She’s not gone. No one called with that news. “It was an accident, it was bad,” they said. But they never said anything about her not making it. At least, not that he could remember. Or did they? Damn it. Maybe they alluded to it and he was too thick to realize. Maybe they’re making sure he gets to the hospital ok, to his family ok, before they deliver the bad news.
Pulling into the lot he recognized the cars of Sasha’s mother and sister. The flashback started as he walked toward the menacing automatic doors. The late night phone call. The ambulance lights still illuminating the building in red and white. His mother and father, heartbroken and tearstained as they told him Tim was gone. The images slammed into him. He bent over the hospital lawn, feeling ill and queasy. After revisiting his dinner he regained himself and walked in the doors, still shaky, still pale, but with all the hope he could muster.
To be continued….