andi.
(click on above image to read! and if the link doesn't work read it at the end of this blog)
I ran into Mrs. Etcher the other day at the grocery market. Well, I wouldn’t say “ran into,” it was more like I saw her before she saw me and hid behind a rack of corn chips until she went on to the freezer section. I told myself it was because the baby was cranky and it would’ve been too much of a hassle to stand shivering next to the yogurt and talk while the baby needed a nap. And after all I wouldn’t want to cut the conversation short. That would be rude. But really, she would have asked me what I’m up to these days, where am I living, do I work, who did I marry…” She would have touched the baby even though she had already been through the meat section and probably stroked all the chicken breasts before selecting the perfect four pack.
The grocery store is the only place where this happens. Mostly because it’s the only public place I frequent around here. For everything else I go all the way to the city. I try to minimize it happening by only going in the middle of a weekday or late at night. My worst fear is running into someone from high school. I can’t explain what it is about encountering these old school mates that make me sweat and the roots of my hair prickle. But now all their parents are starting to retire. Their home all day or else are out at the grocery store stalking the isles looking for some unsuspecting young woman to harass. I have to tell them what I’m doing and do it with just the right about of modesty. Pepper the conversation with polite twitter. And they brag about their kid, the same kid that hit all the home runs on my soft ball team or took the boy I had a crush on to homecoming. They tell me that their kid is now a successful CPA, a lawyer, teaching at Johns Hopkins, they even have all their student loans paid off.
And me? I’m an Administrative Assistant. A secretary. I even got flowers on Secretary’s day. Sometimes I try to step it up a little “I’m the Assistant to the Director of the Baltimore County Crisis Response System.” But then I have to go into a winded explanation of what the crisis system is. And then spend the next 20 minutes talking in a whisper about the tragedy of suicide and how what I do is a priceless service in the community. But I make spread sheets, I order paper and extra staples and I don’t know why we’re even whispering in the first place, we’re not even really whispering we’re just huskily talking like we’ve had tracheotomies or the lining of our throats removed.
It takes me up to 45 minutes before I can smile wanly and tell them to tell their kid hi from me and try, but not too hard, to sound interested in “all getting together sometime.”
It’s not that I’m ashamed of being a secretary, or marrying a local boy, or living with my parents… It’s just that none of it sounds good taken at face value. I wish I could be more like, “Oh, Mrs. Etcher hi, how are you? Oh I’m good. My gorgeous and talented husband and I just moved back here a couple years ago after living in the southwest, traveling all over the continental US rock climbing, kayaking, and backpacking including the Yukon and all of Alaska doing environmental impact research and trying to be an advocate for social change and experiential education. We now live in a beautiful house that my afore mentioned talented husband made in less than six months and we have an adorable baby who is practically a genius.” But you can’t say that. Not to people with the proper amount of modesty. And to be honest she’s not a genius. In fact, she’s recently developed a penchant for head-butting the window, but that’s relatively normal…
I have fantasies of moving away from here. Not too far, but far enough so that I won’t run into anyone in the grocery store. A place that is both exotic and down-home. Some place where they call it a Super Market. So that way when we’re visiting for the holidays and I’m picking up a cheese cake in the bakery and I see Mrs. Etcher I can tell her that we’re just here for Easter and that we live up north where it’s just a little too exotic for her.
The grocery store is the only place where this happens. Mostly because it’s the only public place I frequent around here. For everything else I go all the way to the city. I try to minimize it happening by only going in the middle of a weekday or late at night. My worst fear is running into someone from high school. I can’t explain what it is about encountering these old school mates that make me sweat and the roots of my hair prickle. But now all their parents are starting to retire. Their home all day or else are out at the grocery store stalking the isles looking for some unsuspecting young woman to harass. I have to tell them what I’m doing and do it with just the right about of modesty. Pepper the conversation with polite twitter. And they brag about their kid, the same kid that hit all the home runs on my soft ball team or took the boy I had a crush on to homecoming. They tell me that their kid is now a successful CPA, a lawyer, teaching at Johns Hopkins, they even have all their student loans paid off.
And me? I’m an Administrative Assistant. A secretary. I even got flowers on Secretary’s day. Sometimes I try to step it up a little “I’m the Assistant to the Director of the Baltimore County Crisis Response System.” But then I have to go into a winded explanation of what the crisis system is. And then spend the next 20 minutes talking in a whisper about the tragedy of suicide and how what I do is a priceless service in the community. But I make spread sheets, I order paper and extra staples and I don’t know why we’re even whispering in the first place, we’re not even really whispering we’re just huskily talking like we’ve had tracheotomies or the lining of our throats removed.
It takes me up to 45 minutes before I can smile wanly and tell them to tell their kid hi from me and try, but not too hard, to sound interested in “all getting together sometime.”
It’s not that I’m ashamed of being a secretary, or marrying a local boy, or living with my parents… It’s just that none of it sounds good taken at face value. I wish I could be more like, “Oh, Mrs. Etcher hi, how are you? Oh I’m good. My gorgeous and talented husband and I just moved back here a couple years ago after living in the southwest, traveling all over the continental US rock climbing, kayaking, and backpacking including the Yukon and all of Alaska doing environmental impact research and trying to be an advocate for social change and experiential education. We now live in a beautiful house that my afore mentioned talented husband made in less than six months and we have an adorable baby who is practically a genius.” But you can’t say that. Not to people with the proper amount of modesty. And to be honest she’s not a genius. In fact, she’s recently developed a penchant for head-butting the window, but that’s relatively normal…
I have fantasies of moving away from here. Not too far, but far enough so that I won’t run into anyone in the grocery store. A place that is both exotic and down-home. Some place where they call it a Super Market. So that way when we’re visiting for the holidays and I’m picking up a cheese cake in the bakery and I see Mrs. Etcher I can tell her that we’re just here for Easter and that we live up north where it’s just a little too exotic for her.
3 comments:
i hate running into people from high school at the grocery store, too.
and you should tell them about your life that way, because why not? it is that way, it is that good. the only reason you might have for not telling it like that is...
nevermind. there isn't one.
My wife keeps running into my old gay lovers - can't she for once start talking to a chick that I happen to have 'known'
... and it was a wonderful story
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