Episode Eight – The Aliens

As we are waiting to retrieve the car, my cell phone rings. It’s my fifteen year old wanting to know whether or not I’ll be home for dinner. I explain the predicament but am cut off in mid- sentence. “What, you were towed. How could you be so dumb?” I have been affronted again.  I hang up my cell and dial home.  When she answers I quickly ask, “…to speak with my adorable and polite daughter ‘cause I don’t want to speak again with the nasty alien”.  Good thing humor goes far, for being released from pound custody at midnight was no laughing matter.


Episode Nine and Ten – Language disconnects

Finally the next morning I have decided that braving the city streets was too great a jungle and that I would venture out only into the immediate surrounds.  First stop is a walk on Madison Avenue until I see up ahead a woman I had known but gave up on when her hormonal disabilities, due to fierce peri-menopause, got in the way.  I duck into a bag store and pretend to find a bag I wish to purchase so as to engage in conversation with a salesperson in order to minimize time or opportunity to converse with the nut who’s spotted me and followed me in.  While I am able to minimize the brief encounter the nut asks about where I am living to which I lied stating I was in the same place.  I am sure the salesperson has heard the conversation and has put it together that this is not one I wished to endure.  After making what I had thought was a departing remark, the standard, “nice to see you,” I make my way to the counter only to have the salesperson announce out loud that the address I had on the computer came back as invalid.  The nut, hearing this, stands in front of the counter as I address a multitude of personal questions, exactly the ones I don’t want the nut to know.  In an attempt to lose the nut’s interest, I attempt to fumble around for identification pretending not to understand the error in the records. I rethink the predicament and quickly tell the salesperson I’ve changed my mind and do not want the bag.  Unfortunately my strategy does not pay off since I am asked to update the computer data whether or not I make a purchase. In as voice close to a whisper the salesperson struggles to hear the nut, with her magical senses, manages to take down my phone number before leaving.  Adding insult to injury I ended up buying a bag I really did not want. 

As I am trying to recover from the unpleasant encounter I stop in at my local superette.  I grab hold of about ten on-sale yogurt containers struggling to not lose my grip.  As I near the check out counter which an aproned employee is cleaning, I ask, “Are you open?” to which she replies, “yes,” and continues to clean. I drop the yogurt onto the conveyer belt in front of the woman and watch her move to the next register.  “Why the hell did you do that?” I call out loudly but ignored by the employee.  “Well, you just lost a sale for being inconsiderate or stupid,” I call out looking around for the manager and walk out the door leaving the yogurt behind.

That’s ten, “Stop the bus. I want to get off,” need I say more?