La Moretta

What would Emily Post say?

I have been working non-stop for the past few weeks, and I'm delighted to have the business. However, it has translated into a bit more of the hermit thing than I might have liked. Specifically, I hadn't left the house for two days and needed to get out to go to the grocery store. Of course, on gray days I have to force myself to make the effort, but this one seemed OK -- dash in, check out my own stuff, dash out. I could keep my Ipod on the whole time. 

Famous last words.

I was happily scanning my stuff, pleased that there was no one behind me so I didn't have to rush, when two EXTREMELY DRUNK men got in line behind me. And that's when pervert charisma set in. They of course began talking to me. One of them got into some sort of one-sided argument with the woman behind them, and then turned to me (busily scanning) and said about me, "She's nice. Not her. She's nice and she's cute." 

Those of you who have few of these encounters probably would have thought, "Hey. A small compliment. I'll take that applause. After all, these guys seem harmless and I'm almost out the door."

You would be wrong. You see, I made the mistake of laughing when the guy said that. And he said "She's cute and she has a laugh like...who is that cartoon character? Oh yeah, Woody Woodpecker." I said the only thing I could say under the circumstances -- "Thanks."

Above: Me, courtesy of Animation World Network.

Anyway, the rest of the scanning was interminable. Things wouldn't scan. The loading belt became full, meaning I had to go and bag things in the middle of the order, confusing my line-mates to no end. These two guys were so loaded that they kept trying to scan their chicken using the ATM screen, then every once in a while would try to use their ATM card while I was still scanning. Fortunately they used it backwards so they didn't end up paying for my stuff. 

Eventually one of the guys left. The other guy then decided to see if he could scan his meal on my dime (hey, he was drunk), but was trying to use the coupon dispenser to do so. Frankly, I wouldn't have cared, but when he saw me glance at him, he said, sheepishly, "Gotta try." I said, "I hear ya." 

Finally, I was done. I told Remaining Guy (he didn't seem to realize that) and he said, "Gangsta." I should have just walked away. But I said, "Excuse me?" "You know, gangsta." Or it was possible that he said, "You're no gangsta." He was really slurring at this point. I responded the only way I could. "Yes.Bye."

I high-tailed it out of there but had to pass through exit area where his friend was, the one who compared me to Woody. Fortunately he was busy picking a fight with the man leaving in front of me.

I have no idea how I could have handled the situation differently. Not responding seemed rude and not very human of me. And they seemed nice and harmless. But situations like that take a lot out of me, especially because drunk people don't really observe boundaries of space or personal property (I probably forgot to mention that while I was bagging things up, they scanned a few things from my cart for me using the coupon dispenser, then placed them on the belt for me to bag). 

This must be a past-life thing. Maybe I was John the Baptist at one point. If so, karma's a bitch.

Do you have pervert charisma? (It's not always sexual)

I can't take the credit for this marvelous phrase -- my friend Leslie, who posts on this blog -- coined it, but boy do I suffer from an excess of this particular type of allure.

So what is pervert charisma? Well, it can mean that you attract a lot of perverts, but in my case, what it means is that if I am walking down the street, at a party, at a funeral -- whatever -- I will invariably be approached by the biggest G-rated lunatic within a 100-mile radius. This person will then bend my ear about the poetry they are writing, the true history of our country, the meaning of life, their conversations with God, and so on. My husband's family still laughs about the friendship I developed with great uncle Jerome, who was a proud militia member but for some reason thought I was completely on his wavelength. Apparently my knowledge of how the media works confirmed his greatest fears.

Eons ago, I spent my junior year abroad in Florence, Italy. The patron saint of Florence was John the Baptist, the hermit saint. (You can recognize John the Baptist in renaissance paintings because he is the one who looks like a complete lunatic.) This, I believe, was the reason for the huge number of crazy and eccentric nomads who ended up in Florence. For me, that made for a very long year in a lot of ways.

I still remember at one point we were going to our study abroad group's Thanksgiving party when we passed by a group of extremely disreputable people. My American classmates were pulling away from them and otherwise frightened when who should emerge from the crowd of reprobates but Franco, the red-headed beret-wearing drug addict I had met a few weeks before at a gelateria. Franco of course recognized me (the crazy ones NEVER, EVER, EVER forget you) and greeted me like a long-lost friend, kissing me tenderly on each cheek. (This pretty much cemented my reputation within the program.)

Still, things could have been a lot worse -- those people could have been suitors rather than people who simply saw me as a kindred spirit. But then again, you can dismiss suitors, whereas kindred spirits remain so for life.

Above: "Hi Moretta! I'll be stopping by during the next adoption home visit wearing my brand-new hairshirt! See you then -- we've got a lot to catch up on!"