Tailgating is the same as shoving

Here’s an odd compellation of thoughts for today.

The first is a compellation within a compellation: a combo of my classic sexism and passive aggressive driver’s rage. This week I have been driving over each morning to feed a dog that my beau and I are monitoring, and I mention this only as an excuse to say that I have been cooking a special meal of fried beef hearts daily for this dog-faced dog.

Anyway, so in my drives I have noticed a disproportionate number of aggressive tailgaters, which is not surprising since I think that I have blogged before about the mean drivers in the higher income neighborhoods and snooty shopping centers (fountains, so many fountains) in this area. What was surprising about this particular crop of tailgaters is that they were distinguished looking older men in fancy cars. I’m not so removed from the wonders of Hollywood that I don’t understand that 50 is the new 40 and that business men will behave as frat boys in spite of their silvery manes, especially when they have fancy foreign cars. But these old men were driving (lattes in hand, the sissies) as though they also ate beef hearts and greens for breakfast every morning.

Here’s where the sexism comes into this: I find this more offensive than when some girl with bug-eye sunglasses and a graduation tassel hanging on her rear-view mirror tailgates me. Tailgating is like shoving, only more cowardly because you tailgate people that you won’t dare shove in real life. I will continue to be sexist and offended when an old fellow who should know better goes around shoving people who are the lady-like two-door hatchbacks of humanity.

Other thoughts…I thought that I had other thoughts when I started typing this…

Okay, well, on then to reflections on the art of retail. That’s right, retail. I am doing it and I won’t suffer any flack from anyone about the supposed dignity of the college degree. Degrees, I wager, have slightly less dignity these days than old men. So, appeal to me with your questions about sensible shoes and not a damn thing else. My early prognostic is that retail is like working in an office, but with more bending.

Oh, now I remembered my other thought. It’s one that I’ve been having for a few days but since I had that weird rash of posts about coffee shops I decided to defer mentioning it until I had some variety. In my tour of local coffee shops I noticed that old ladies often have coffee dates with all of the whimsy and leisure of being retired.

These ladies meet up to talk about their families and their health, two topics that would annoy me in the mouths of the midday Starbucks mom’s but I find perfectly acceptable in this instance. The difference is that these old ladies speak quietly. So I guess that the theme for today is that old men are losing it, but old ladies are keeping it real.

Final thought, and then I’m done. I am, despite my high handed statements, back in a coffee shop. I can’t help it! At home I was tempted to try to give myself a Gibson girl hairstyle; I needed to get out of there if I was going to get anything done today.

And for punishment of my hypocrisy, the music in here is like a twang-y acoustic death-match between Dave Mathews and some lady-loser of the same genre. Ack.

Also, I think it might be in Spanish.

A whole pie and a pink lemonade

Have you ever left a restaurant during that tiny period of time after you’ve ordered your drinks but before the waitress has brought them? I have, plenty of times. I call it the soda-break-break and I actually feel pretty bad about it.

I remind myself frequently that it is not a case of the fabled “dining and dashing,” but instead a last minute choice to eat elsewhere. And I earnestly regret that the restaurant is out a few sodas (I won’t go into my theory about how soda is the best and cheapest liquid in the world here, because that won’t win my any sympathy points). But my real guilt comes from imagining the confusion of the waitress when she (yes, she, I’m being sexist today) returns. I also feel very sneaky rushing away from the table with my head down, shoulders slumped, giving a furtive “thanks” to the hostess, even though I am fairly certain that this practice is not illegal just in bad taste.

You might ask why I am doing this so frequently if I am aware that it is in bad taste. (On a side note, is eating out in bad taste these days? With all of those calorie lists on tables I’m not certain.) Last minute regret-driven decisions are just one of the many fantastic bad habits inherent in being indecisive.

Indecisive behavior is particularly cumbersome when dealing with restaurants and eating because it can be so easily shielded by a pretend politeness. No one wants to venture a food type and when the issue is decided, everyone wants to drive there. I am personally a master of the “I don’t care. What do you feel like eating?” line even when my soul earns for a burrito.

I suspect that you are thinking that while this is all well and good, repressing one’s desire for a burrito is not a crime equal to the soda-break-break. And I agree, the two are not equal. But the soda-break-break is an escalated version of the indecisive choosing conversation.

The break generally occurs on occasions when you have been seated and you know the moment that you sit down that you made the wrong choice. Anything could bring about this realization but my queries have revealed expensive food, loud kids, and a bitchy hostess with gauged ears as the main contenders.

For example, my personal-person and I were seated once in a Marie Calendar’s in some shopping mall somewhere. The moment that our asses hit the cold plastic booth it was as though a switch had been thrown. We suddenly saw the restaurant as it really was: cold, depressing, and filled with church-goers wanting the breakfast buffet at 2:20 in the afternoon. I stared in horror at an old man sitting alone a few booths away eating a whole pie and drinking pink lemonade. Not even cornbread could persuade me to stay.

We asked for two cokes, and when the waitress wasn’t looking, we made a soda-break-break.

My please-employ-me voice

The best parts of being unemployed:

- Shopping in an empty grocery store at midday.

- Never sitting in traffic.

- Not seeing other humans.

- Eating lunch at 10 a.m.

- Bonding with my dog.

- Getting to read the news in “full screen” windows.

The worst part of being unemployed is:

- Looking for work.

Seriously, it is the worst part. I could say that not making money is the worst part of not having a job as everyone knows that I’m a greedy miser, but I venture that currently, as my savings is not yet overly diminished by my activities, actually looking for a job is worse.

Take today for example. I went to the Safeway a few hours ago to get some mexi-cheese for taco salads. As I walked out I noticed that a nearby Pete’s Coffee had an abnormal number of colored leaflets in the window so, always vigilant, I sauntered in that direction. Sure enough the one of the leaflets was advertising seasonal hiring. I debated going inside for a few minutes because I was in a my usual slob attire but I rationalized that Pete’s pretends that it services the hippie demographic and so I just went inside.

I strode up to the counter and in the differential voice that I’ve acquired over the last few weeks said to the disinterested kid behind the counter, “I saw the advertisement in the window that you guys are hiring.”

He nodded. I smiled ingratiatingly. When he didn’t take the hint I asked with the same quiet tone for an application. He handed it over. I thanked him dramatically. We stared at one another for a moment.

“So,” he asked with an air of impatience. “What can I get you today?”

I bought a guilt-coffee because I couldn’t think of how to properly articulate that I’d only wanted the application and that my entire casual demeanor was an act.

Also, I just realized that the last three posts have revolved around coffee shops. What sort of puesdo-bohemian loser am I? Obviously I need to get a job, like, pronto.

PS, this post is dedicated to my favorite bro who is my only blog fan and is also seeing a doctor today (in the biblical sense).

Stay at home moms? Stay at home.

I have decided that I will stop coming to coffee shops to try to write. Currently I am sitting in my local (ahem) “Starbies” trying not to feel sad about this decision. Truthfully I’m not finding that very hard; midday Starbucks is enough to put anyone off of coffee shops.

Were I to consult logic, frugality, and reason, I would likely find that there is very little reason for me to be in coffee shops at all. Firstly, though I do like coffee very much, I have forbidden myself the consumption of caffeine and so must imbibe sugar drinks with no caffeine payoff. Secondly, I have recently taken employment at a minimum wage and so should not but be wasting money (3.24, holy crap!) on small pumpkin lattes. Thirdly, the “pleasant” music is always a trifle too loud. Fourth and final: midday Starbucks moms are the worst.

Currently sitting to my left is a group of four middle aged ladies who are talking non-stop about their high school aged kiddies. These kids, who all seem to be called some variation on “Kaitlyn” or “Kalie,” just went to the prom en masse and some hi-jinx ensued involving one mother accusing another mother (not represented here) of allowing kids to drink alchy at her house. Rapt discussion of high school football follows. These moms are harried and concerned. They worry about “sexting” and MySpace (though they all have Facebook) and seem to know all of the romantic drama in the vaguest terms. They plan birthday gatherings at BJ’s. They have the Sex and the City theme as their collective ringtone. Mostly they just talk loudly.

I wonder if this is a daily meeting. Probably I should wonder why I am such a jerk.

The kind of face that I've got

My face is the kind of face that makes uncomfortable exchanges occur. It is the face of a sucker, the face of a bottom-layer pyramid schemer, the face of someone who is a little afraid of the homeless and so will give them money. In short, it’s a damn inconvenient sort of face to have if you ever plan on leaving your house.

I’m used to these sorts of interactions and generally I wouldn’t think twice about the thing that happened to me in a coffee shop this afternoon. But last night I was reading a short story that put an interesting idea into my head.

The story was a very modern thing that mentioned chat rooms and Sanrio. I can go both ways on pop-culture savvy short stories. On one hand I like to feel included in the narrative, like the author had me (or rather my demographic and our collective implied demographic intelligence) in mind when he/she penned the story and now we are sharing a great literary joke as was intended. On the other hand, the mention of specific websites in novels make me feel a bit snobbish and pukey, to say nothing of my noted and dramatic reactions to starlet name-dropping in literature. However, as usual, this is all beside the point.

The protagonist of this story, through various S/M exploits with a fellow called Satan, reveals that she is dissatisfied with men because she has the sort of face that make them want to worship her. She meets these men and wants nothing more than to have brutal sexual encounters involving duct tape and flogging, but they all too soon start professing love for her and she believes that it is because of the nature of her face.

So today, when the following occurred to me in my local coffee shop I thought to myself: “Well this is the sort of face that I’ve got.”

After a mildly uncomfortable job interview I headed down to a coffee shop to try to get some writing done. I was determined to earn my weekend or I promised myself punishment in the form of typing. Plus I hadn’t been out much this week and I was feeling a little detached from the world.

So I got a coffee bev, seated myself near an outlet and was soon puttered away. Before long, a middle aged woman (bright shirt, black pants, bangles, too much hair with too much blond in it) chose the seat nearest mine and asked to use my outlet. As someone who is always far too uncomfortable to ask this question but always needs an outlet, I readily complied (though I shifted my computer a little so that she couldn’t see my Seabiscuit desktop photo). At this point I consider us comrades in computer use, but certainly not chatty.

A few more minutes passed and the woman asked me if I would “be a sister” and watch her computer while she used the bathroom. Always the enabler, I agreed, though my radar for religious nuts was tripped with the word sister. Anxious to avoid questions of conversion (and on closer examination seeing a saint’s medallion around her neck) I didn’t make eye contact when she returned and promptly got on the phone. Between the phone chatter of my new friend and the loud world music in the ship I decided to call it a day.

I noticed my friend eying me as I packed up my gear and so in an effort to be friendly I announced that the outlet was in her possession now. I got a “Bless you” and a mumbled TGIF-style sentiment for my troubles. I exited the building feeling jaunty.

I had not gotten 6 feet, however, before the Saint Lady was calling “Hey girly!” after me from the doorway. I turned around, embarrassed that I answered to ‘girly’ and thinking that I must have forgotten my keys or wallet somewhere. She wasn’t holding anything so I halted awkwardly in the entryway.

“You are so darn cute,” she announced and maintained eye contact in that weird Life-Coach-y way. I ran a mental scan. I was wearing the casual version of my professional interview ensemble (remember this outfit, oh loyal blog followers?) which involved black Dockers, Midwestern housewife hair, thick white socks that I hoped people couldn’t see when I sat down, and some no-nonsense footwear. I can only hope to aspire to cute on my best days and a sweaty post-interview me is not cute.

“Oh,” I said convincingly.

Saint Lady said that she’d like to ask me something, and I said “Oh” again. She asked if I was a student. I informed her, with a dollop of pride that surprised me, that I was a college graduate but recently unemployed. Her eyes lit up. She asked me if I would be interested in a business opportunity.

This time, all I could manage was an “Um” before she held her cell phone, which was spouting up a recording about digital technology and millions upon millions to be made, up to my personal ear.

I squirmed. I thought about how when I was in France the beggars always knew that I was American and would beg in English. I thought about how I was going to rush home and blog about this freaky experience. The recording told me that I could be making money every time someone turned on their television. I thought about how I gave two dollars to a very suspect charity in front of Trader Joes last week because I didn’t know how to say that I didn’t care about football. I thought about the sort of face that I had.

Eventually I said that I had to get going. She told me to go on her website and let Donald Trump convince me, reasserting that I was too cute to not be playing for “the big money.” I considered telling her that cuteness of the face is not the issue here, the issue is the gullible nature of the face and the gullible nature of the brain housed in it, but I didn’t want her to bless me again, so I just scuffled away.