I really do know better...

...than to ever stop at the Hellmouth 7-11. Home to so many strange episodes in my already strange life, the convenience store of Satan continues to confound me.

Yesterday, after a fruitful run to Big Lots (where, as usual, I was the only native speaker of English seeking bargains among the crap), I decided to run in and grab a gallon of milk and an early Sunday paper at 7-11. What could possibly go wrong, eh?

(Sucker!)

I grabbed a gallon of 1%, which was only slightly more expensive than gas in Montgomery County, a Sunday WaPo, and, for good measure (and potassium), a banana. The Indian clerk at the check-out counter was a woman roughly my age. She started to ring me up and said, "So, you are going out to dinner now?"

I looked down at my newspaper, banana, and milk. Strange stuff to take along to a restaurant, especially at 3:30 in the afternoon. "Uhhhh... no. I'm going home. Think I'll take a little nap, and then do some housecleaning."

The clerk offered a sad smile. "Ah... your children are not taking you out to dinner?"

I was still confused. "Umm... I have no children."

Again she said, "Ahhh, I see. Then your husband will be taking you out to dinner?"

Ah-ha. I got it. Mother's Day. "Uhhh... I'm not married."

The clerk stopped ringing up my stuff. "Then you will be taking your mother out to dinner?"

This was getting a little obnoxious. "Unfortunately, my mother died in 2001." (More than she needed to know, but I was vexed.)

Putting my paper and banana in a bag, she responded, very sadly. "So, then, you are like me. No one to love and no one loves you."

My jaw just about hit the floor. I wanted to say "Speak for yourself, sister!" but instead I just said, "I hope your weekend improves."

Yeesh.

Since Mom passed away, I don't put much mind to Mother's Day. All of my sisters are mothers, as are the vast majority of my female friends. But I'm not a member of that club. It actually offends me when friends tell me that I will never really know love until I have a child. So, because I'm childless, I'm incapable of Real Love? WTF?

I fear I would have made a pretty crappy mother; I can't keep a plant alive. Some of my friends have even said that to me (about children, not plants, that is.) And, while I never necessarily saw myself with children, it still hurts - stings really badly - to have people I love and respect tell me I wouldn't be good at a pretty damn common, central, human, womanly task.

I would love to say that I am a woman without regrets, but that would not be true. In many respects, I feel that have been a failure at the basics of being what 90% of this planet considers a woman. I've never been good enough, beautiful enough, thin enough, educated enough (mostly thin enough, I know) for any of the men I've loved in my life to want to even consider me as a partner. I will never know that apparently transformative experience of being a mother. The truth is, except when there are deadlines at work, no one actually needs me.

I recognize my personal failings -they are legion. And despite them - and the belief that the average American feels it's cool to mock the shit out of me - I don't look for sympathy. I don't want it. I shun it, as a matter of fact. I find it embarrassing.

That said, as my last single friends move forward to marriages and partnerships, though, I do ponder this: as space and time and obligations and commitments put distance between us, will I reach a point where I feel as absolutely empty as that clerk in the 7-11?

I pray not.

About a dozen years ago, I was in a rural market in Uzbekistan - somewhere on the road between Tashkent and Samarkand. The market was filled with old men and women of indeterminate age - their sun-leathered skin and gold teeth masking whatever youth remained. As I left, one of the withered women took my hands in hers. She bowed her head, wrapped in a bright green and pink scarf, and studied my palms. After a minute or two, she lifted her head and spoke to me in Russian. "When you die," she said, her eyes locked on mine, "Many men will mourn you, but no women will."

I found that funny and puzzling, especially considering my innate inability to build an intimate relationship with any man in my more than half a lifetime. And yet, once I was accused of breaking up a relationship because my platonic friendship with the male half of the equation was too solid. (It was a massive cop-out excuse from a woman who had PLANS and a fairly rigid timetable for marriage that her boyfriend didn't care to meet.) After the break-up, she informed me that she had discussed it with her boss - her boss who'd never met me - and they'd determined I was responsible for everything falling apart. Riiiiiight. So sorry, sistah. Not my fault, and I won't apologize for any friendship. Some of my closest friends are men. I can't attract them, can't make them fall in love with me, can't make them want me, but I can talk to them.

Helps to be a geek.

*sigh*

Well, that took a tangent I hadn't expected.

But doesn't every trip to the Hellmouth end up on a very strange path?

Happy Sunday, y'all.

Jag-off

Thursday night, I stopped by the CVS in downtown Bethesda to pick up a box of Nice & Easy 114, the current (non-freaky red) cheap hair color of choice. I snagged a parking space next to the two handicapped spots and went in. As I scanned small boxes for the right color, I overheard snippets of a loud conversation between a couple perusing the Easter candy aisle.

"But do you think he's really handicapped?"

"It's just wrong."

"Yeah, no shit! Nice car, though..."

I assumed someone with no handicapped plates had pulled into one of the few designated spots at the pharmacy. Wouldn't be the first time that had happened here in the land of entitlement. I thought nothing of it and paid for my box of chemicals.

When I got to my car, I saw there was a very spiffy Jaguar parked next to me, occupying a handicapped spot. Indeed, there was a handicapped tag hanging from the rear view mirror. An older gentleman sat behind the wheel, the driver's door open. He had one leg stretched out the door, and, though I tried not to look, I could not help but see he had a serious palsy in one arm.

Or so I thought.

As I did the "healing spine sideways shimmy" to get into the Crapmobile Mark II, I got a better look.

Nope. No palsy.

The guy was going to town, whacking his willy in his fancy-schmantzy car. Polishing the wood. Beating his well-aged meat. Wanking with abandon.

I could not help it. I just stared, my jaw scraping the ground.

The onanistic Jag-ster finally noticed he had an audience and tried to stuff his member back in his trousers and get his leg back in his car. People, this parking space is directly under a big light right on a busy section of Wisconsin - there is no way you can masturbate in your luxury car a few feet from the entrance of this CVS and NOT be seen.

For once, I didn't say anything. I was just astounded and drove off, shaking my head. I know being affluent is no guarantee of having common sense, but there clearly had to be something wrong with this dude. At least I understood the conversation of the candy aisle couple.

What the hell is the problem with this CVS? Is it a second Pike Hellmouth, like the 7-11 by White Flint? I'm starting to think so. And I think I'll start using Purell after touching any products in this particular CVS location...