Ladies, It's All About Me

This girl who spoke to me in the pharmacy line-up, I'd seen her in the parking lot. I was unbuckling my nephew from his car seat when I noticed her, because she was wearing a leather jacket, a short plaid skirt with black tights, and fake Doc Martens. In the drugstore, when I pushed the cart with my nephew in it to the counter, there she was.

Before, I'd been looking at her outfit. Now, I looked up: she had huge, A shaped, hippy hair, and parted in the middle, and nothing punk about it. Totally inconsistent with the rest of her look, except for her face. She turned toward me and hissed: "have a fucking stroke why don't you, for fuck's sake, fuck off," followed by a loud exhale of ragebreath. All because I'd said "excuse me" to her when the spot where she was standing turned out to be the natural gap a normal person pushing a cart would go through.

Suddenly, her outfit didn't make sense anymore. It no longer felt like a vote of support for my own vestigial, but hopefully still noticeable, coolness.

See, when we were in the parking lot, I'd experienced a heady, but possibly imagined, sense of approval: by me of her outfit, and of me by her, as though she could somehow tell that I had pogoed across the divide between the 70s and 80s, had never gotten over the death of Joe Strummer, and was still secretly punk, without a trace of it being in evidence. That is, I felt that she and I were friends, that we were naturally aligned somehow. So the "fucking stroke" thing took me by surprise.

Luckily, I have the ability to appear attentive to my nephew's happy blather under any circumstances (my sister is a fuck up, and unable to provide really good care, so I spend as much time with him as possible). I was able to keep it together, and maneuver around this phony, hippy punk abomination as she hissed her vitriol into the side of my head, like a blast from a stinky inner tube pierced by a nail.

The dirty non punk faker was glaring at me, so I deked down an aisle where I could still see her, and she could see me, but where I was hidden from the seniors waiting to use the blood pressure cuff. I flipped her the finger, while keeping my we're all friends here smile plastered to my face. She whipped away with a scowl.

I saw her once more before we left the store: she had the pharmacist out from behind the counter and was pointing down the aisle at me with her mouth all scrunched up. It looked like, uh, you know, a bumhole. Her voice rose, and I heard "the authorities!" Then the pharmacist said what a lovely day it was, and pointed out the window, trying to distract her, so I got us out of there fast.

We dawdled to the library, a block and half away. You can get coffee there, and when I finished paying for some, I looked up and who should I see but her! Yes, Her! Her back was facing me, so I whipped us over to the children's section. We looked at books much longer than necessary, because I really didn't want to run into her again.

I was waiting for the adrenaline poisoning feeling I get from engaging in the level of intimacy required of strangers such as her and me to be rude to each other in public. The feeling didn't come. In the past, this sort of rage connection with a complete stranger would have left me feeling shaky and sick to my stomach.

I'm not sure why I get so afraid. At a base level, I guess I go on high alert. You know: there's a crazy person in the building-be ready to run with child in arms. I figure, if I have to, I can hang on to my nephew with one hand and get a good punch in with the other. I'm not afraid to be loud, but thing is, I'm somebody's auntie now, so I try to conduct myself with dignity.

After a while, we left the library and made our way to my sister's. She put the little guy down for his nap, but was kind of crusty with me. Her littlest one, about three months old, was really whiny, and her eldest was watching TV way too loud. I just wanted to get out of there, but instead took a deep breath and asked if I could use her computer.

She looked at me for a minute like she'd forgotten how to be polite and then she quite rudely asked, "What?"

So I went ahead without asking for her help or permission, or whatever. I borrowed one of her do it yourself business card sheets, and got to work making 2 by 3 and a halfers I could hand to the faux punk the next time I saw her. Because I knew, sooner or later, I would. It's a small town.

Propaganda   -   The Dear Ex-Friend Project   -   Plunder   -   Contact Janette