While standing in the check out line, waiting, fumbling for my ID card, I hear from over my shoulder, “What happened?!”
Startled, I look up and see a woman standing behind me, holding a grocery basket, but her eyes aren’t meeting mine. I look around for a second before I say “Excuse me?“
“What?!” says the woman, perusing the sweets on the rack besides us.
“Huh?! Uh, ma’am, are you…” I attempt to say, urging some sort of a response before I was cut off.
“What are you talking about?” she fires back, still fixated elsewhere.
“Ma’am? Excuse me, I’m sorry, are you speaking to me?” I finally nudge her on the elbow.
She looks at me like I’ve just shot her dog. Like I just called her mama fat, or had an affair with her husband. “What?!?” she says to me, at least it appears she’s saying to me? Since I had assumed she was talking to me the entire time, I really had no idea at this point whether she was or wasn’t, except now she was finally looking at me.
“I’m sorry, but are you speaking to me?” I return, completely baffled by this situation. I had no idea what was happening other than the fact that it was now my turn to check out and this woman was scaring the ever-loving crap out of me, like she’s possessed by a Poltergeist or something. I was honestly looking for that scary blonde headed girl to appear out of thin air and call out “Mommy?” in that creepy, sucked-into-a-TV-by-a-ghost kind of way.
“No! I’m on the phone!” she snaps, as she apologizes for interrupting whomever it was she was apparently talking to all this time.
To me, no apology. Her steely stare said it all. I’m the rude person, having interrupted her phone call. Oh! So sorry about that {I guess}.
By this time, I’ve got people looking in our direction, as I’m holding up the line with this nonsense, and this crazy Poltergeist woman looks like she could suck out my soul for having interrupted whatever important talk she was having.
She had medium-length curly hair, covering both her ears, so not once had I ever noticed the friggin’ earpiece until she hung up when it came time for her to check out. I didn’t even see her carrying a cell phone, either! She was just standing there, her purchases in her basket, seemingly talking to herself (or to me, whatever).
In a weird way, it made me miss living in New York, reminding me of visiting “the City” one time, actually. Walking up and down the streets, chock-filled with New Yorkers, visitors – people from all walks of life – even crazy people. I fondly remember this one time, an old lady screaming at the top of her lungs – at a brick building – for cheating on her.
…
I know that there are times where you feel like you can seriously lose your mind if the ‘mommy! mommy! mommy!’ chant doesn’t stop it’s loud parade during your migraine. But nothing says looney tunes more than seeing random people apparently talking to themselves, or worse, when you think they’re talking to you and they’re not.
“They’re he-ere!” {shudders}
Never miss a post! Subscribe here for all kinds of crazy parenting fun!
