Good Thursday to you then, Pops and those sliding toward the weekend. Yesterday was an adventure complete with intrigue, mystery and horror. Warning: probably going to be long. I am not sure because I am not done yet.
My cleaning lady comes every other Wednesday. She's not actually my cleaning lady, she has other clients as well but I am sure I am her favorite. The reason I have one is that I don't like to clean house and don't do a very good job and I don't like to clean house. As it is my custom, I go to town to break the fast and do a little grocery shopping and I end up at the Bluebonnet Café, an institution round these parts and there for 90 years. And so have some of the waitresses. And been noshing on biscuits aplenty.
Anyway, I was seated in this booth, because I like to practice falling off bar stools and they don't get it, next to this couple with their son that seemed to be in his early 30's and I was to discover he was going through a separation. Now we've seen this in several threads here in the OTZ from the man's perspective but I have to say not ever having met this woman, I am totally on her side. Have you ever been around a couple that one of them repeats what the other says because they've been around each other for too long? Well, both of these people did that and they should have been the ones separated and well before he was able to impregnate her. I envisioned him screaming his own name right after her. I had to resist the urge to look around and see if the parents had parrots on their shoulders.
This was one of those times that annoyance turns into entertainment. At one point, the man is explaining why his wife wants this separation to his parents and right after he would say something, one of them would repeat it and the other followed and a couple of times, he repeated it for verification and to award them for paying attention. I am starting to crack up and have to hold my phone to my ear hoping it doesn't ring. I don't know if you've seen Schitt's Creek but I think the writers have sat right where I was sitting for inspiration.
I started off with sympathy for this man which developed into sympathy for his wife and wondering if she really ever listened to him before agreeing to marry him? Of course, the parents took his side of it and offered their support but if they'd been objective, they wouldn't have. At one point, the mother lowers her voice and says "do you think she'd cheated on you"? Well, you know me, I imagine I looked like a giraffe trying to get to the top branches and could hardly hide my interest. His reply was a negative. I felt like whipping around and saying "oh yeah, well she should have. And they should have tied you up and made you watch". But I didn't. I was fearful that I would end the conversation and I had already finished eating and was drinking coffee to have a reason to hang around but the coffee was starting to work and I was afraid I would miss something and they wouldn't repeat it upon request. I was starting to fidget in the booth when they did me a favor and got up to leave or I might have asked them to go to the bathroom with me.
So, I mentioned going grocery shopping and wine, don't forget the wine. I made it to my HEB, the Texas chain that everyone loves like Whataburger and Dairy Queen, and it was a slow day and I was killing time, letting my cleaning lady rifle through my underwear drawer, and I decide to get a goodly amount of jalapenos and tomatillos to pickle and as I am ever so critically picking out the best ones, I hear this high pitched voice barking in Spanish. By the way, picking out the best ones has a twofold reward, you get what you want and deprive some other shopper, that you probably wouldn't like, from getting the best ones. That's how they become my Precious. So, as I turn to see just where this racket is coming from, I see the source. This is my nightmare, being shipwrecked with just this woman and no means of ending it all accept to drown myself in the ocean and I fear she will save me using mouth to mouth.
She is loudly shouting orders at what I assume are her daughters, and I make a mental not to check the sides of the milk cartons as these two girls do not want to be in this store with this woman. I don't want to be in this store with her either. Let me see if I can paint the adequate picture for you. She weighs at least 300 and is wearing a dress at least 2 sizes too large for her so it hangs off her shoulders and she is not wearing a bra. Not only is she really talking loudly but she doesn't have her teeth in, and I am assuming she has some as it should be a local ordinance, and she's chewing gum with her mouth wide open and not just gum but bubble gum. You are probably thinking 'how does he know it's bubble gum'? Later in my adventure, I have to double back and encounter the threesome and as I am approaching them she looks me squarely in the eyes and blows a bubble. I know, I should be flattered as that's surely a pickup tactic and considered foreplay by her husband that must have offended God in some way.
The most fun in this adventure was not watching this woman drawing so much attention to herself with her loud high pitched order barking in Spanish, it was those drawn to this spectacle so I decided to wander about watching people watch her and I was not disappointed. There were several women that couldn't help themselves, they just stared in shock. My hanging around was rewarded when she showed up at the checkout and began barking at the daughters what to take out next and put on the conveyer belt, this was the showstopper as everyone just stopped what they were doing and watched this unfold. One of the young men that works there was checking me out and he could only hear her because she was on the other side of the display but when she came into view, barking orders, chewing that gum at least at an 8 gum chomps a second clip, he looked like Harry Dean Stanton the first time he sees the "Alien". The looks on those peoples' faces as this entire adventure unfolded is a memory that will serve to boost my mood but I was left to reflect. Did she use that bubble blowing move on any other men or was I the only one. The closest thing that came to mind was that video of the octopus getting into the jar to get the fish. I know how the fish felt.
Well, by even my own warped standards, this was long and I congratulate you for reaching this point and I thank you. I spend most of my time alone and need to share these adventures with someone and I don't want to be rude and make a friend sit there listening. I envision you folks looking at this and thinking 'oh hell, do I have time for this? I should save this until I am bored enough to separate all my socks to give me some thing else to do when I am bored again'.
The thing about this is the lesson I keep missing. I am impatient and usually in a hurry but I was killing time for my cleaning lady and I slowed down to take in the adventure. The adventures with people are all around us, just waiting for us to take the time to let it unfold. I am always seeking entertainment and usually resort to doing that here with self amusement but the entertainment is there, it's all around us. All we have to do is open our mind beyond ourselves and use the most underused muscle in the body, the imagination muscle.
and here I was thinking he just wasn't a beans and franks guy.
