I cannot run for public office—ever. There’s a potential
YouTube video. It won’t be flattering.
Somewhere in the bowels of our local box store lurks a
security video where I can be seen devolving into the circling, snarling
matriarch of a hyena pack.
Because . . .while trying to do the right thing and return
my buggy to the buggy corral, I may or may not have rolled that buggy in front
of a little old lady who resembled a wizened Mother Goose.
Note: Buggy is southern for shopping cart. Mother Goose is
southern for an elderly woman pushing a mean buggy.
Let the record show that Mother Goose was completely out of
sync, going in the down, and up the out. She’s lucky she wasn’t buggy crushed.
Forced to walk three—possibly four—steps out of her way, she blamed me.
“People are so
rude these days. You pulled right out in front of me,” she said.
For a disorienting minute, I thought I might have been
rolling down the interstate in my convertible buggy.
It’s important to note that ninety-nine percent of the time
in these confrontational shopping buggy-parking situations, I generally say
something like, “Sorry. You are so right; rude isn’t a big enough four-letter
word for what I am.” Then I grovel.
This time, for reasons only my hormone soaked reptilian
brain might fathom, I did not grovel. I bristled.
Seizing on the driving/parking metaphor, I hiked up my
arthritic right hip, slapped the back (buttocks) portion, and while hopping
about on one foot, chanted, “Next time signal! Put your blinker on, put your
blinker on, put . . .”
Then it got really weird.
Mother Goose hiked up her more arthritic hip, slapped her
buttocks region, and shuffle-shuffle-hopping, shot back, “YOU! Put your blinker
on, put your blinker
on . . .”
Circling each other while slapping, chanting and shuffle
hopping, we were like two woozy dogs with six legs between us. Hackles were
visible and raised. My opponent had age and experience on her side, however,
and eventually, I retreated to the neutral territory of the restroom, where I
splashed water on my face and checked for multiple personalities. It’s possible
that the bad me frightened a security guard and confused some cashiers.
Later, I realized that a security camera had recorded the
entire incident. That out there in cyber-verse-land exists a video of me
slapping my butt and insulting a nine hundred-year old, Mother Goose look
alike.
That’s why I can never run for public office. There’s a
video. Just my luck, it’s not a sex video; those things never seem to be a
problem for anyone.
