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Archive for 12. April 2010
April’s March Madness?
12. April 2010 by PB Rippey.
1. BLACK HOLE IN BORDERS
Lady Clerk scans my items in Borders as my son declares, loudly, his confusion as to why there’s no debit machine on his side of the checkout desk. Lady Clerk says to me: You really should come to our toddler’s storytime. Your kid would love it. I lead the reading and we have LOTS of fun.
Me: Actually, he doesn’t do well at story—
Lady Clerk: Your email isn’t coming up in the system. Give it to me.
Me (shifting my son to my other hip): Um, okay—I do get emails from Borders, though—
Lady Clerk: Just give it to me.
Me: Oooookay.
I give her my email, spelling it out not once, twice, but three times as my son squirms and demands the non-existent buttons and yanks on the collar of my coat like it’s a bell pull and he’s announcing a fire to the town…Or something like that…I am operating on a late night of tax prep and an early rising, 5:15a.m., when all of my son’s lights went on like—like a Mama’s nightmare.
Lady Clerk: Yeah, but there’s usually an at. Like, at Yahoo dot com. What is your at.
Me: At PB Rippey dot com.
Lady Clerk: Yeah, but there’s always an at. What’s your at, your AT.
Me: At PB Rippey dot com?
Lady Clerk: No, that’s wrong. There is always an AT.
My son: BUTTONS??? BUTTONS MAMA???
Me (with significance and focus): At PB Rippey dot com.
Lady Clerk: Just give me the whole email address again. I have the first part, letter Z, letter P, now what’s the AT?
Me: Not Z. It’s P as in—perambulator. B as in—bulimia. At. PB Rippey dot com.
Lady Clerk (with a scolding sort of glance): Ah, well! You didn’t say that before. Storytime is Tuesdays at……….
Blah, blah, blah.
What I wish I’d said, being the Queen Of Hindsight:
1. Actually, I told you my correct email three times. OR
2. You know what? You’re just not hearing me today. Let’s move on. OR
3. STORYTIME IS FOR SUCKAHS TURKEY LEG!
2. IN THE POST OFFICE VORTEX
Me (after waiting patiently for the postal lady behind the counter to sort her post office-y items and chat to her coworker about drainpipes disengaging from stucco): I’d like to mail this, please.
Postal Lady Clerk (weighs my manila envelope): Dollar ninety-five.
Me (as T, on my hip, lunges for the buttons of the debit machine): Oof. Here you are.
Postal Lady Clerk (with great alarm): This is a twenty!!! Don’t you have anything smaller?
Me: Ow. T! Careful of mama’s kidney. I’m sorry, no, I don’t have—
Postal Lady Clerk (raises my twenty dollar bill and waves it at her coworker at the other end of the long post office counter): She’s wiping me out! Do you have any ones?
Her cohort (with a derisive snort): Nope.
Postal Lady Clerk: She’s taking all of my change with this twenty. You’ve got to help me out!
Her cohort (snorting): No, I don’t. Use some of your coins as change.
I have now ceased to exist in the post office. I don’t even offer to use my debit card because 1) T has taken over the debit machine and, 2) I am invisible.
Postal Lady Clerk: She could have given me something smaller, gone to the store first and broken the twenty. Whole Foods it’s just next door! Anyone can see that.
Her cohort: Snort.
Postal Lady Clerk (handing me my change): I’m wiped out. I’m just plain wiped out.
I haul my son from the counter and leave the place for good.
What I wish I’d said:
1. Excuse me, stop—listen—I can use my debit card if you give me a second. OR,
2. Hi–I’m standing right here in front of you and am totally aware of everything you are saying. Can we find a solution? OR:
3. I HOPE YOUR DRAIN PIPES RUST TURKEY TAIL!
3. STRANGERS IN HELL
I can’t even go here without becoming a livid, raving, rabid beast as it involves my child being reprimanded by some guy.
What I wish I’d said:
1, 2, and 3: TALK TO THE HAND TURKEY BREATH!
This response feels cathartic and right, even if it’s immature and wrong of me. It’s better than murder. And maybe I wouldn’t have felt better saying it, but I wish I’d thought of it at the time. My hindsight is keeping me up nights. What to do?
Well…
If April is the “cruellest month”, here’s to May’s blithely bobbing, uber-fragrant, terminally cheerful flowers. And to turkeys with good breath and gams. And most of all, here’s to sleep, sleep little boy, sleep from 9:00p.m. until at least 6:00a.m. Enjoy your night’s rest—and watch the return of your mama’s sanity, watch her hindsight rise to the surface of her blank, frayed consciousness, watch her deal with snarky people with confidence and ease, defying the suck of black holes, et al, handling everyday crises so well that never again will you hear her muttering angrily in the minivan as she screeches from the premises of venues previously oh-just-fine to visit. Here’s to the bobbing flowers, to sleep and to the next visit to Border’s. I know what black holes smell like. I recognize the eerie shimmer of an approaching vortex. I am an adult. Ha, ha! Watch me, baby. Watch me rise. Lullaby, and good night…
Or something like that.
WWW.NOBLACKHOLESORVORTEXVENUES.COM
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