I was at Safeway getting some things to make it through the weekend without having to do a major shopping trip. I had a list, and made it up and down the aisles in record time. Nearing the checkout, I noticed the lines were short, and pulled in behind a man buying cold cuts and a bottle of booze. I put my groceries on the conveyer belt before he finished paying. I strategically placed soda at the front, so I could grab them from the checker right after he scanned them, and get them back in the cart. I did this with such haste I nearly broke the plexiglass screen protecting him from people that sneeze without covering their mouths.
I put my bank card in the machine, and answered all the questions, before reaching over the counter and grabbing a plastic bag to quickly load the food after being scanned. I was working fast, and this only highlighted the snail’s pace of the girl standing at the end, working to bag the groceries. She had on a full length, neon yellow, rain coat with grey reflective ribbons running up, down and across it. She looked pained, and when I said hi, she said, “I got braces on today.”
“Say goodbye to eating bananas,” I thought, as I put the bunch into a bag. I buy them for Johnny. I like to suggest them as a cure for headaches, back aches, or feet aches. He usually tries it, and sometimes it works, especially when taken with Tylenol.
Maybe the bagger was curb stomped before her braces were put on because she was suffering. I felt bad for her, but at the same time, wanted to encourage her to suck it up. Those braces aren’t going anywhere for a while. I said, “Sorry, I remember having braces, and it does hurt, but the first day is the worst day. It will only get better from here.”
I think this made her bag slower. After I loaded up three bags, I looked at her still working on her first and desperately wanted to rip it from her hands, saying, “If you don’t mind, my eleven year old is in the car, and even though I told her to lay on the horn if a crack head comes up to the window, I’d still like to make it out there in time to beat him over the head with this pineapple.”
She held a bag of tortilla chips wondering if she could get it in the plastic bag, and I politely said, “That’s ok, I’ll just keep that out of the bag. I hope you feel better.” And she wouldn’t hand me the bag, but instead very slowly put it in the cart like she was playing Tetris on the easiest setting. Then she looked at me like I was an asshole, which was likely just the face she had on from her mouth pain, and I rolled out of there. When my son and I got the the car, Kiki was just finishing up her game of “Rich Girls” on my cell phone and we headed home.
They were filled with dread about starting back to school after Christmas break. Kiki asked Johnny,”Aren’t you sad it’s the end of Christmas break?” He wanted to answer, “I didn’t get a Christmas Break!”
I told them, “The second half of the year flies by. It will be summer before we know it.”
Then G said, “It’s going to take forever!”
I suppose for them it will, but for me it won’t. Just the other day I ran out of toothpaste, and grabbed the multipack out from under the sink and pulled out the last tube. I remember when I used to buy toothpaste one tube at a time, and it didn’t even seem that often, but now I buy them in bulk, and regularly. In ten years it will probably feel this way buying enormous rolls of saran-wrap. I’ll be at the store heaving a 1,000 foot roll of plastic wrap into the cart, saying, “I feel like I just bought one of these yesterday.”
We spent the last week of break living the life of a depressive, pop-culture fiend, binge-watching TV and eating a lot of food without nutritional value. This doesn’t help my mood. I thought my complaint about the additional remote control for the sound bar went unnoticed, but later, when Johnny was home, Kiki announced, “My mom says she doesn’t think the sound bar does anything!”
I was embarrassed. Men love sound bars, so much so that maybe there’s an undiscovered erogenous zone in their ear. To me though, it’s all the same. I blushed, and admitted to saying it. I probably should have gotten out of the house more.
I told my dad, “I get bad anxiety around this time because I can’t go running form the rain.”
The origins of my dismissive optimism were made clear when my dad replied, “Join a gym. You’ll be fine.”
We moved on to another topic. I ate a banana and thought about summer. It’s just one roll of saran-wrap away.
