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.