Screaming Cashier

Can someone please tell me why the 75-year-old cashier at the Duane Reade this evening threw up her hands at me?  She was so utterly exasperated at what came out of my mouth that I thought she was nearly going to call the cops.  You'd think I had asked her for the most unreasonable of requests, like a pizza topped with sherbet or a Prada wallet dipped in paint.  I'll tell you this, though: her tone quickly hushed the long line of shoppers behind me.  I wasn't the only one caught off guard.

I bought a box of Post's Great Grains cereal (I love me some dates, pecans, and raisins).  She gently and calmly asked whether I had found everything I needed this evening to which I replied, "Yes, thank you."  But when she handed me an itty bitty plastic bag with handles too small to hold the box of cereal, I asked if she had a bigger bag.  She cried out, "If I had a bigger bag, I would have given you one.  We're out!"  And then she followed it up with a big heavy sigh audible to even the last patron waiting at the very end of the line snaking behind me through the snack and beverage aisles.  With wallet in hand, my arm frozen halfway to my purse, I quickly scanned the people standing around us because surely, she wasn't addressing me in this tone?

Erm...[sound of chirping crickets...]

And all this delivered in a quivering, high-pitched, Indian accent accompanied by dramatic gesticulations of her wrinkled old hands.  I looked at the tiny little grandmother standing in front of me startled out of my wits and, after a few seconds of stunned silence, with much caution, quietly inquired, "Can I just have a second bag, then?  This one is too small and about to tear."  

To which she returned to a much more acceptable volume for a sweet little old lady's voice and daintily responded, "Why, of course!"

Crazy.

No, I Don't Need That Either

There were many low points in high school: too many to count and certainly enough to creep their way into my thoughts and dreams a decade later.  Senior year was definitely the roughest of my four.  What follows is just one of the precious memories that I've yet to forget.

A member of our class is now apparently in med school and clearly on the professional path that most well-educated prep school kids follow.  Of my entire class, by senior year, there were very few peers whom I considered genuine and honest.  He, however, was one of them.  He was one of the most intelligent members of our class, a nerd by all standards, but friendly enough and at least not too socially awkward.  He wasn't flashy, showy, pretentious, or any of the charming adjectives I'd use to describe many members of the class of '98.  That is, until the day I learned that he was, in fact, an equal to the privileged that are so commonly bred in prep school environments like ours.

It was the fall of our senior year when the college admissions process was in full swing and he sat next to me in class.  I think it was a history class.  Or maybe it was homeroom.  I remember exactly where we were sitting.  The overwhelming burden of putting myself through college darkly looming over my head, I was not looking forward to returning home later that evening to fill out a slew of financial aid paperwork.  Unfortunately, not one of my friends had to worry about their college selection process.  There was no one for me to lean on, no one who shared my problems.  Instead, the most difficult decision for my classmates was WHERE TO GO? whereas I was more on the SHIT, WHO THE HELL'S GOING TO PAY FOR ME TO GRACE THE HALLS OF THEIR UNIVERSITY? school of thought.  So I thought, to hell with it, I'm going to ask him if he's applying for financial aid.  It would be nice to have a friend in the same boat as me and maybe even to bounce ideas off of one another on how to tackle the mountain of financial aid apps.  Unlike most of our peers, his parents didn't ooze money and as far as I knew, he was the third of three children to go through college, so he has a high chance of needing financial aid.  So I bit the bullet and asked him, "Hey, X, did you start your financial aid paperwork?"

I saw his eyes momentarily roll into the back of his head as though my innocent query had induced a mild epileptic episode.  And this is what I'll never forget: my eyes registering the supremely insulted look on his usually kind face.  And then my heart sinking; not from offending him, but from realizing that the mere act of my relegating him to the handful of students in our school that could potentially need financial assistance to fund a $150,000 education actually insulted him.  He pulled his neck back ever so slightly away from me, involuntarily flared his nostrils out, squeaked out a tortured,

"NO, I (emphasis his) DON'T NEED THAT,"

turned his body away from me, and wouldn't make eye contact with me for the rest of the period.

Imagine that: the one person in my class I hadn't dubbed a pretentious snob turned out to be just that.  Evidently they come in all shapes, sizes, and wardrobes.  Who knew?!  It was eye-opening. 

I couldn't quite put my reaction into words at the time, but now, ten years later, I know exactly what was going through my head: YOU ARE AN EFFING TWIT.  And guess what? Just like you don't need that, I don't need this condescending bullshit tone of yours either.  So let your parents blow a chunk of your trust fund on your education.  And suckers like me?  Suckers like me go to Ivy League universities on scholarships.  Financial aid rocks, asshole.

If only I were this articulate ten years ago.

Laps

I lost touch with childhood friends a very long time ago.  And that's very sad.  I occasionally hear updates through that magical grapevine that, is it just me, or will it never wilt?   I admit that it's fun to hear that such-and-such got married to such-and-such whose aunt was the nice woman who taught your Sunday school class when you were in third grade.  It's mildly entertaining to hear about such-and-such's nuptials at this, that, and the other church.  It even brings a smile to my face that such-and-such honeymooned in Hawaii, and oh, did I know that my best friend from fifth grade is now expecting her second child?  And the one from your science class, his parents provided the down payment to his and his wife's condo?  It's simply delightful to hear the joyous news.  

The problem is that it feels like the news pelts down on me like hail in a wicked winter storm.  The list just goes on and on.  And eventually, my smile turns upside down when I learn that so many ---- oh, oh, oh, so painfully many ---- of them are now straight-up knocked up.  Pretty soon, it'll all be about pureed organic vegetable mush, Elmo, and drunken little sailors wobbling around barefoot across their living rooms.

It's like they're zipping through life.  They're running laps around me.  Laps, I tell you.

It's no contest, this I know.  It's fun to watch and hear and share in their excitement, but in the quiet stillness of an empty apartment or in the buzzing chaos of a rush hour New York train ride, it just kinda makes me wince.  Just a tad.  Nothing painful or serious, just a little flutter that passes through my eyelids and it's gone just as quickly as it arrived.  But its presence, the flutter's presence, that is, stays just long enough to make me wonder where I'll be this time next year, and the next, and the next.

Steel Vagina

I knew my period was on its way this week so I preemptively wore panty liners (is that one word?) the day my boobs started to feel tender.  This usually prevents minor underwear damage and gives me time to find a proper maxi pad or tampon.  I use a combination of pads and tampons depending on what's available and whether my monthly flow's on the lighter or heavier side, but when I use a tampon, I only make the switch once the flow actually starts.  I feel like inserting one when you're dry is just silly.  I digress.

So yesterday, Aunt Flo finally arrives mid-morning.  I make a beeline to the bathroom only to find that there's not a single pad or tampon in my cosmetics bag.  No problem.  I have a panty liner there until I can get my hands onto a proper feminine product.  Worse comes to worst, I can go to the Duane Reade across the street.  Problem is that I'm super heavy and I'm not sure I can make it across the street and back without an accident.  

No sweat, I think.  I work in an industry dominated by like 95% females, 4.999% gay males, and the remaining 0.001% are well-groomed heterosexual males.  I should be able to find some decent feminine products somewhere on the floor without having to resort to the whacked twenty-five cent numbers lounging in the tin can propped on the wall of the ladies' room.

Except when I whisk back outside into the field of cubicles, I see that everyone on our team is in a meeting and the girl who usually sits in the cubicle next to mine is out sick.  So I call the assistant from my desk.  Sure, she has some tampons.  No problem.

Um, yeah.  First of all, they were super size; as in I've-given-birth-vaginally-*twice* and I-forgot-about-Kegel-exercises and I-have-a-flow-so-heavy-that-I-need-a-tampon-the-diameter-of-an-effing-tree-trunk size.  Second of all, who was the genius who invented the cardboard applicator?  It must have been a man.  Perhaps an eco-friendly man, but certainly someone without any consideration for a woman's comfort level.  If it was a woman, it must have been a woman with a steel vagina.  Because that thing not only looked like a spitting image of a shrunken toilet paper roll, but because I am positive that I know how to properly insert a tampon and yesterday's efforts was an embarrassment to my womanhood.  

Rest assured that my vaginal woes are over this month.  But super size cardboard applicator?  No, thank you.  I'll pass.  Never again.  Nevah.