Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Queen of Awkward Ice Breakers-- More Awkward Encounters

Recently I stopped at a grocery store, (which fortunately wasn't one I normally shop at), where I was UNpleasantly surprised to find that the parking lot was hosting what appeared to be a good-sized loud, public argument.  It looked like a Jerry Springer/white trash convention of screaming, crying, arm-waving, jumping-up-and-down random adults and small children, all of whom appeared to be attacking each other VERY LOUDLY.  And apparently it's always a good thing to include the small children if you're going to have a complete screaming cursing meltdown in a public parking lot.  Start young, is their motto. This whole thing was happening one car away from where I parked, because of course I'm not a savvy driver enough to notice a small gang war going on in a parking lot, so I accidentally parked right next to this giant drama.

I actually hurried to get inside, while trying not to listen for possible gun shots behind me, because, yes, it was that dramatic.  One lady was actually jumping up and down.

Like this, only with way more tattooed people.  And babies.
I got up to the check-out, and the cashier was this nice 20-something girl with a lovely foreign accent.  She asked for my I.D. for some wine, then she very flatteringly did a double-take at my age and then looked back at me, and back at my driver's license, and was like, "What?  Seriously?  No way you're that old."  I smiled and said, "Aww, thanks!" because there is no better compliment on the face of this earth.  

She went back to checking items through, then stopped and actually came back to study my face closely, then:  "Seriously.  Just...wow.  You look GREAT."  Again, "Thank you.  That's so sweet."  She did it a third time.  Not even kidding.  By now the kid who's bagging the groceries is sort of staring at me, so I looked at him and said, "It's OK...I'm actually 120 years old.  Don't tell anyone."

She was so sweet about it, and she kept going on about it in this lovely foreign accent, and it was very flattering.  Of course I wanted to say something witty and grateful in return, so I said, "Could you just come home with me?"

I MEANT it to sound like "Could I just adopt you, and you could live with my kids and teach them to always tell me I look young and beautiful every day, forever? Even when I wake up all cranky and snarling at everyone?"  But the shortened version of that thought...didn't come out sounding right.  Instead, it sounded kind of ...weird.

She kind of laughed and was like, "Oh.  Uh...no, I can't."  *pause*   "Not that it's not a nice offer..."

Oh.  Oh, my Lord...   No.  Wait.

I didn't even have the sense to be like, "Oh, no. I meant it like 'can I just adopt you?'" ...so I just ignored the whole part where THIS JUST GOT WEIRD and decided to babble on about the frackas in the parking lot.  "Did you guys have to send someone out to settle that big fight in your parking lot a little while ago?"  They were like, "What fight?"  So I described it, and she let us know, in her cool European accent, "Yeah, that's an AMERICAN thing," so apparently Europeans keep their big noisy fights at home or in back alleys or something.

Then the bagging kid decided that he should probably walk me out to my car, because by now it was getting dark, and remember...I'm possibly 120 years old, and no one wants to see an old lady get knocked down in a gang brawl.

He followed me most of the way to my car and apologized for the fight, like it was his fault--"I'm so sorry you had to see that."  Still, I could tell he was probably wondering if I was going to ask HIM to come home with me, too, judging from the careful distance he kept behind my cart.

*sigh*

I'm just glad it wasn't my regular grocery store.

6 comments:

  1. I'm pretty sure that my sisters aren't my sisters and you are my sister.

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  2. I have to admit, it makes me feel all kinds of warm and fuzzy to know I'm not the only person who experiences these delightful sorts of interactions. :)

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  3. See, I think you TOTALLY misunderstood the intentions of the bagger kid – he obviously was smitten with you and escorted you to your car in the hopes he would “bag” his first cougar. The walking behind the cart thing? He was totally checking out your ass!

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    1. LOL. Hmm, yeah. He was probably walking that safe distance behind so he wasn't struck dumb by my awesome enchantress powers, even with our 100-year age gap. Good thing I didn't talk to him. Who KNOWS what dumb thing I might have mistakenly said?

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