Ritual

Wally

The mumbling codependent is at it again. Wally fell from his nest, while his parents made their frustration readily apparent by screaming at one another all evening. Dusk was quickly approaching, stray cats looming.

And so first I made this:

And then I went about weighing it down (rocks beneath the grass) and perching it within the crook of a tree in the backyard.

The parents weren't particularly jazzed about my involvement despite my use of gloves and anesthetic (for me, not Wally). At least Wally is safe from predators and the damp ground. It'll be interesting to see if the integrity of the nest will hold up overnight, as well as whether or not his parents have figured out what has transpired because frankly, Wally's ready to eat and I'm out of worms.

I'm just sayin'.

jenji

I Say Tomato

I'm frequently approached by loquacious individuals--specifically, gentlemen-- in the grocery store, as well as senior citizens, however the latter is a tale for another time. I'm not entirely sure why men--particularly middle-aged men--find the need to speak to me. Actually I have my suspicions--a gut instinct-- and they range from the very benign and friendly to the dangerously sociopathic; today the gentlemen registered somewhere in the middle.

The Particulars:

I needed two vine ripe tomatoes and so I began to do what I always do: fondle the produce. Produce needs to be handled so as to ascertain its quality and shelf life. And so I aggressively handled the tomatoes. I tried to do so generically, as I was already aware of his eyes upon me and I could feel--I could tell--that he was being more than an impartial spectator to my handling. Suddenly I was a general practitioner there to conduct a physical; I could feel it: I could hear him thinking it. He was ogling me as I went about my business and he made me extremely uncomfortable; it's a female instinct that just cannot be explained unless you've experienced it; and some women don't even have this instinct to rely upon. Some argue that to be ogled should be flattering, however it's not flattering, it's disgusting. There's a definitive difference between admiring and ogling and you know it when you feel it.

Now I'm a chatty individual and I have no problem with making eye contact and idle chit-chat in a grocery store; in fact, it can be rather pleasant to embrace the camaraderie a grocery store may have to offer. And so it would be a rarity for me to act a snob, however my gut instinct has always served me well and so when it goes into Defcon 5 I tend to listen to it and thus appear arrogant and snobbish. It's self-preservation.

And then he said it:

-What does one look for in a tomato?

Ugh. Really? Where's your wife (there's always a wife or significant other looming about, electively ignorant) and why are you just standing guard next to the tomatoes like a creep in the bushes? And what's with the salmon colored golf pants? Seriously, isn't there an online porn account that needs tending?

Now my answer is firmness- I look for firmness in a tomato, but there was no way in Hell I was going to respond with that little nugget of information given the guy was already visually and now audibly breaching my personal boundaries. And so I answered: color, I look for color.

Lie.

What I wanted to say was: piss off, freak. But I didn't. Instead, I collected my fruit, which had barely been inspected properly and quickly made my way over to the bananas. Yes, the bananas.

Thankfully he didn't follow me, as I managed to shoot him just enough stink-eye so as to say: piss off, freak.

jenji