Excuse me, but I can’t help noticing that you have hands.

Last week, in the checkout line at the grocery store, I witnessed a magnificent feat of laziness. The woman in front of me stood stock still, a vacant half-grin fixed on her face, her eyes flicking back and forth as the checker scrambled to scan and bag all of her items. She just stood there. No attempt to help, not even an offer. She just let the poor woman working the register struggle while looking on like some sort of witless drone.

It was all I could do to refrain from making some wiseass remark about leaving the manual labor to the peasants.

Now, I know lots of grocery stores have designated baggers--it is their (mostly) sole purpose to put your stuff in your bags and help you get out the door with it. My grocery store doesn’t have this. When there is a lull, employees will help with bagging. During the holiday season there are more able bodies helping out, but there aren’t enough of them to help with all the bagging all the time. Yes, this woman didn’t have her own bags with her so she was purchasing store paper bags, but they don’t keep those under lock and key. Some are kept near the register, and some are very conveniently located in a little cubby at the end of every counter. And even if they were kept out of reach of the hoi-polloi, there’s no law against saying, “Hey, pass me a few of those and I’ll help you.” In any case, the woman in front of me didn’t seem to have the presence of mind to do anything other than gawk, so there was nothing anyone could do (short of being a real jerk) to help things along.
 
I would like to note here that when it was (finally) my turn, the first thing I did (as I always do) was start bagging my groceries like a useful human being.

Anyway, this incident got me thinking about all the irritating things people do in places like grocery stores. And then I got annoyed. And now I’m writing about it. I think not helping the checker bag your groceries or other items when there is no designated bagger is right up there on my list of store pet peeves. It’s definitely in the top three. Another one that makes me crazy is people dawdling on their phones in the middle of aisles. Pull. Over. It’s not rocket science! Don’t stand there, oblivious to your surroundings, taking up valuable moving-around space, while you yak with Kelly from the office about Barbara’s new haircut. (Also, the rest of the store couldn’t care less that it makes her look like a cut-rate Sally Field circa Smokey and the Bandit, so turn down the volume while you’re at it.)

Don’t dawdle. If there’s one thing I can’t stand that clogs things up for everyone else, it’s people who have to look at everything as they go down an aisle. If you’re looking for something specific, pull to one side and hug the opposite set of shelves. At least that way you’re only inconveniencing the people who need tomato paste, and they will say ‘excuse me’ and you will move a foot to the right and everything will be fine.

My grocery store has these little kid-sized carts in addition to the regular ones. I’ve seen adults use them when they have a short list, but they are mostly (as they were intended to be) used by kiddos. This can be a wonderful exercise in educational play! It teaches responsibility! But it only does these things when the accompanying adult is actually, you know, adulting. If you’re going to let your kid use the kid-cart, you need to be on top of things. Your kid is going to behave like a kid, which can lead to drag races down the aisle and bumper-carts in the produce section if you, Accompanying Adult, don’t do your job. Pay attention to your child/ren. Help them feel useful while at the same time minimizing any disruption to those around you.

Exceptions to the rule:

• Obviously, if you have a disability--temporary or permanent--which makes grocery bagging difficult for you, you get a pass. That should go without saying, but I’m saying it anyway.
• If you are on the hunt for an elusive ingredient or need assistance differentiating between two similar products and have called Mom for advice, as long as you try your best to stay out of everyone’s way I don’t mind.
• If your child has some sort of disability, I know you’re doing the best you can. Keep on keepin’ on, you.

But the rest of you heathens need to sort yourselves out. 

After all, there’s only five more sleeps ‘til Christmas.

Which is weird, because I feel like I’ve been done with it since two weeks ago. I’ll be glad for the day off, but since I’m not doing anything to mark the holiday this year I’d be okay without it, really. Oh, I have my lights up outside and a few little decorations in the house, but I didn’t bother with the full tree or anything and because I’m a grown-up no one gets me presents any more, so overall it’s going to be a slightly-more-decorated-than-usual-random-weekday-off.

And I’m not mad about that.

I’m finding that the older I get, the less build up there is to what were in the past very much anticipated holidays. What with all the family drama I don’t expect to see relatives (sometimes I do, but I don’t expect it to happen like it used to) so there’s no get-together to plan for. (I’m also not mad about this. Effort is not my friend. Nor are long-ish drives, overeating, and having to tell people ‘what I’m up to these days’.) Since I haven’t produced any small humans, I don’t have the constant barrage of school art projects and recitals and letters to St. Nick to serve as glittery, red-and-white striped reminders. I’m not churchey, so there’s no giant plastic light-up nativity to guide me towards a house of worship. I quit dancing in college, so THANK THE BALLET GODS THERE IS NO NUTCRACKER* TO PERFORM!

No, none of that nonsense this year. I’ve already done all of my designated holiday-making, what with the annual carol-singing party and the Party Which We Will Not Speak Of Again, so it feels distinctly odd to look around and see store parking lots still slammed and decorations still going up and hear Christmas music still on the radio, even though the calendar proves that the holiday itself has yet to occur. I’m done. Shouldn’t you all be done, too? Can we put this crap away yet?

Nope. Despite my having managed to get things over and done with ahead of schedule, the rest of the population seems determined to celebrate on time. Very well, then, I’ll indulge you.

I do have my own little Christmas traditions that I’ll enjoy on the ‘for-real’ holiday. On Christmas Eve I’ll watch The Muppet Christmas Carol and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (there is only one--fight me). On Christmas Day I’ll sleep in, give the ratties their Christmas presents (yes, shut up), and then at some point I’ll watch both The Thin Man and Desk Set which are set around Christmas time and are therefore Christmas movies I don’t care what anyone says. Other than that, it’ll just be like any other day off. Maybe I’ll use real sugar in my coffee that morning. Maybe my meals will consist of nothing but fancy cheese. Maybe I’ll leave the Christmas lights on all day. I’m just going to do whatever I feel like doing, and that’s my Christmas present to myself.

The sad part is that in a way it feels completely unfair. There are so many people who desperately wish they didn’t have to be alone for the holidays, and here I am waxing poetic about how I get to be alone and I’m thrilled about it...it just seems wrong. To a point. I do feel for people who aren’t able to celebrate they way they’d like to, but I’m classifying Christmas-for-One as self care, and that’s just that. Hell, I might even go so far as to spend the day only plugged in enough to watch my movies. No email, no telephone, no social media...that sounds kind of fantastic, actually.

Oh, who am I kidding? I know I’ll think of something I’ll need to look up, and then I’ll be down the internet rabbit hole like usual.

Probably somewhere in between post-fancy-cheese-lunch-nap, and fancy cheese dinner.




*Funny side story--a colleague was showing a video of her daughter’s holiday dance recital to another of our colleagues and the music was the snow scene from the Nutcracker and I started having flashbacks to the year I was an Icicle. “And flick! Flick! Flick! Flick! Flick! Turn! Flick! Turn!” The twitching stopped...eventually...

Not Another Office Christmas Party

Every year towards the beginning of December my office has a holiday party. Everybody dresses up. It’s always at a restaurant the company buys out for the night. It always has an open bar.

I hate it.

The first (and lesser) reason for this is that I take an inordinate amount of flack from certain individuals in the office for the day of the party being “the one day a year Elizabeth puts on makeup and a dress!” While they are about eighty percent correct, that doesn’t mean the joke doesn’t touch a nerve. No, I don’t put much thought into my day-to-day appearance beyond ‘clean and tidy’--I don’t have the patience to deal with hair product and perfect eyeliner on a regular basis. I was a dyed-in-the-wool tomboy growing up and I never really had an attachment to anything frilly--and I spent inordinate amounts of time in a ballet studio, which you’d think would make me the girliest girl who ever lived, but if I could have performed every Nutcracker and recital in straight-up tights and a leotard so that my lines were clean, I would have. I mean, I’m not trying to claim that I never had my more frou-frou moments, but mostly I was all about function over fashion. I do not now, nor have I ever, done designer handbags and million-color eyeshadow palettes.

Still, I go along with the mock astonishment for the sake of the joke, saying that the day of the party should be declared a national holiday, et-har-very-har-cetera. When the party actually happens, I then have to brave the onslaught of commentary regarding my appearance. Don’t get me wrong, I take no issue with a sincere but simple, “You look nice.” It’s the over the top “Oh my GAWD! You look SO [adjective]! Doesn’t she look so [adjective]?! Oh my GAWD!” that make me want to turn invisible. I intensely dislike having a fuss made over me--at least publicly--and when it’s being done by people who have managed to pass the legal blood alcohol limit half an hour before I even made it to the party, it’s worse. It would be bad enough if it was just once a year, but any time I decide I feel like dressing things up a bit just because, my entire office lose their minds and start squealing about it and I just cringe. And then I don’t dress up again until I have to just to avoid everyone getting the vapors because I’m in a skirt.

And as if that wasn’t enough, there’s still the other thing that makes me dread this party. I hadn’t until last Friday (12/7, several hours prior to the party itself) made the connection for myself, but my infinitely clever therapist pointed it out and then I felt like a really dumb bunny. The gist of it is this: I dread this party like no other because I spend the entire thing in a state of hypervigilance because I am convinced that the open bar is going to lead to someone grossly overindulging (and, based upon historical, first-hand evidence, this is infinitely likely,) and deciding that assaulting me is a Very Good Idea.

“That last bit is a pretty catastrophic conclusion to draw. You know the odds of that are pretty miniscule, right?”

...Well, shit, Doc.

Maybe you recall a few posts back when I discussed THIS. I’ll give you a few minutes to refresh your memory. Go on, I’ll wait.


...


Done? Fine. Now that it’s been pointed out to me, it makes complete sense that I would spend the run-up to this party thinking of everything that could possibly happen and the best ways to either keep it from happening, or getting out of any potential altercation--by diversion, or by force if necessary. I am acutely aware of the fact that alcohol only increases the possibility, so it’s no wonder I have studied the drinking habits of certain members of staff, observed their actions while intoxicated, figured out how to stay as far away from them as possible when there’s booze to be had. The last four years the party has been at the same restaurant, and I have memorized the floor plan and all the exits--you know, I don’t even go to the bathroom during this shindig. They’re located down a hallway, out of sight enough to be a problem. I obsess over the details, repeat the possibilities in my head over and over, and by the time I actually get there I’m exhausted and fraying at the edges, jumpy and hyper-aware of my surroundings.

Because I have been there before. I know what can happen when someone decides they have the right to overpower you. I have devoted countless hours of time and reserves of energy to making sure that I am never in that situation again.

And this year? This year I had what I suppose I could label a runner-up problem. A colleague invited a (male) friend as her Plus 1 just to have someone to go with. Plus 1 found me agreeable, which was fine for about half an hour, but at that point he turned up the pressure--disguised as easy charm, of course--and all my red flags started flying. I repeatedly said no to more drinks and anything else he suggested, but apparently “No” didn’t compute for him somehow, and I then had to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to find people on the other side of the restaurant to talk to so I wasn’t alone.

I left at eleven (the earliest I could get away and have it be socially acceptable, since I dawdled in getting there and was 45 minutes late) feeling helpless and furious at the same time, which isn’t an ideal combination of emotions, let me tell you. I was physically vibrating.

I mentioned Plus 1’s failure to take my refusals seriously to the colleague who had brought him in a text the next morning, and was met with, “You can’t blame the guy for trying.” No, I can’t blame him for trying. What I can blame him for is not knowing when to stop trying. “He really did enjoy talking to you and told me how pretty he thought you were. So that’s gotta feel good. Right?” No! Wrong! It doesn’t feel good at all. It feels cheap and creepy and like the walls are closing in around me. It makes me feel powerless. Maybe if he had taken the hint and eased off, stopped being so overbearingly pushy and just, I don’t know, been a person instead of a fucking stereotype, then maybe it might have been flattering. Maybe. All I know is that my chest has been constricted since Friday morning and I’m fighting off insistent men in my dreams at night. I don’t want people touching me--even people with whom it hasn’t previously been an issue. I don’t want to see people. I don’t want to talk to people. I just want to be left alone because alone is safe and nobody tries to lecture me about ‘being too sensitive’ or try to explain that ‘that’s just how guys are’ or tell me to ‘just get over it’.

I just want to exist without constantly having to fight for it.

Why is that so hard?

The Ballad of Fuzzy Lumpkins

Some of you are aware, but for those of you who aren’t, I keep rats as pets. The short explanation is that I’m not home a ton and I’m allergic to dander, so they provide a low-maintenance, low-allergen option for all of my snuggling needs.

After losing my male rat, Big Dutch, in July, I wasn’t immediately ready to adopt again so I waited until sometime in October, at which point I got myself three of the sweetest little girls I’ve ever met. They are curious and joyful and I love them to pieces! They started exhibiting the symptoms of exacerbated mycoplasma a few weeks ago, though, so for about a month I’ve been making regular trips to the rescue headquarters to get medicine for them. On one of these trips I made friends with a complete chunk of a male in a group of brothers who have been at the rescue for most of their lives--they’re seven or eight months old. Jenn the Rescue Lady pulled him out for me, and he was perfectly content to ride around on my shoulder and sit in my hood and let me give him whisker loves while I hung out with Jenn and bought yet another hammock for the girls. (They shred them like it’s going out of style. “Kids, it’s called a ‘pocket hammock’ for a reason--it already has a pocket!” “Nah, we need to make another pocket, kthx.”)

So, naturally, he came home with me, and to keep with my theme of names from the Powerpuff Girls cartoon, was dubbed Fuzzy Lumpkins. Since I hadn’t intended to add to my colony I didn’t have anything to get him home in, so I tucked him in the hammock and hoped for the best. He sat quite happily in my lap the whole way home--he even helped me drive (his little paws and chin resting on the bottom of the steering wheel). Now, he still had his ‘boys’, so he couldn’t go in with the girls until those were removed, so he was in a cage by himself next to the girls but not so close that we could have any little ‘accidents’. I got him set up, and a few hours later I reached into the cage to add something--and he chomped me.

Now, I’ve been bitten by my rats before. Most often it’s really just a ‘touch with teeth’ or a little nibble because there’s food flavor on my hands, and that’s perfectly natural and acceptable. Sometimes it’s a nip, which means “Hey, you startled me!” or “Exsqueak me, I don’t like that, please don’t do it again,” and that’s also okay. Rats don’t speak English, so they communicate with what nature gave them. Other times, when a bite has broken the skin, it’s either because the rat went to take a treat and missed and got a finger instead, and once or twice it was a ‘level two warning bite’ because the rat was pissed off. This bite, though? This one was different. It was deep, and it was hard, he didn’t immediately let go like they usually do.

“Okay,” I thought to myself. “He’s had a stressful day, he’s in a new place, I’ll give him this one.”

Fast-forward a couple of days. I’m cleaning the bottom of his cage and he is taking a walk around the living room. When I finished he was to my left, so I reached across to let him sniff my hand before I picked him up to put him back in his house. He took one sniff, and then,

::CHOMP::

At that point I was understandably confused and didn’t know what to do, so I called Jenn who gave me a pep talk and some very good instructions on how to get the little booger to knock it the fuck off.

“Okay, I can do this! I can, I can, I can!”

That night (when he bit me again) I followed Jenn’s instructions to the letter. Rats are very, very smart, and they push boundaries like toddlers--or in Fuzzy Lumpkins’ case, a hormonal teenager, which he pretty much was--and, like dogs, they pick up on your vocal cues.

So there I was, sitting on my living room floor, bleeding profusely from one hand and holding the offending muncher in the other so that he was facing me, and lecturing him. He was taken aback, which was the point, so I popped him back into the cage and went on about my evening. In spite of the new war wound I was cautiously optimistic, so the next evening when the little booger started to bite at my pants for no apparent reason, I attempted a repeat performance--but he got hold of my thumb.

And he bit.

And he bit.

And he bit some more.

He went back to the rescue the next day.

The whole thing is a big bummer because I really wanted him to adjust and join my little rat colony (once he was fixed). Males are generally much more relaxed than females and can mellow out the energy of the group somewhat, and they’re more likely to snuggle properly rather than snuggle-explore-snuggle-explore-walk on your face-explore-snuggle. When he was out of the cage and not busy chomping me, he would follow me around like a dog. I think he would have been a prime candidate for the guinea pig harness and leash that yes I totally do own shut up. Sadly, he wouldn’t stop biting, I opted to keep the use of my hands, and we were forced to go our separate ways. I feel like a failure, honestly, but at least I wasn’t one of those jerkoffs who returns an animal for a truly stupid reason like “Oh, it just doesn’t fit with our lifestyle” or “The kids got bored with it”...right?


UPDATE: My thumb is slowly recovering. It’s still bruised and slightly swollen and numb up the inside, but that’s easing off gradually.