It’s eight-thirty in the morning on a Wednesday. I have an engagement at nine. For God knows why (he might not even know), I have an engagement at nine.
I hop in the car. It’s a sunny morning in Saint Petersburg, which tracks because almost every morning in Saint Petersburg is sunny. It's warm too, and for the first time in months I register a hint of humidity. We’ve survived another grueling Central Florida winter, come out the other side with all our fingers and toes in working order.
That’s meant to be funny, what you might call a “joke.”
A school of dead oak tree leaves shoot up in the air like confetti when I turn onto 4th Street. In my rearview, I see some of them land on the windshield of the car behind me. In this city, fall occurs all at once in February, right before the average temperature shoots back up to a level you might call “elevated.” Public math is always a risky venture, but my calculations suggest that’s a three-to-five-month lag off the national average.
They call that an outlier.
I’ve always liked being an outlier, thought positively of myself as one, and I’d say that living here compliments that persona. I know it’s unwise to tie one’s identity to place. But I didn’t say tie, I said compliment. Tracking?
Just then my phone buzzes. It’s a headline from an app I probably shouldn’t have downloaded.
Florida Woman Kidnaps Scientist in Effort to Make Her Dog Immortal.
She’s an outlier.
Good, bad, or indifferent, she’s an outlier. That’s just a figure of speech that rolls off the tongue nicely. Obviously, she belongs in the “bad” bucket.
Although there is a more positive way to interpret her behavior.
It’s not always about the money.
Sometimes it’s about love.
Love makes us do crazy things.
I’m jolted by a honk. There’s a five-car gap between me and the car ahead of me, meaning the light turned green roughly five cars ago. I’ve been too engrossed in this story of questionable merit. Don’t text and drive. Don’t get sucked into sensational stories via pesky push notifications and drive.
Now moving again, I do that thing where, after being honked at, you look in the rearview and try and get a once-over of the honker’s face, as if in doing so you can ascertain their whole life story.
If I feel I’ve been the target of an over-zealous honker I won’t do this because I don’t believe in road rage and I don’t want give the over-zealous honker the satisfaction of thinking I’ve been affected in any way by his slash her honking. But in a case like this, where it’s clear the person behind me really fretted over whether to tap the horn, gave me the benefit of the doubt for at least five cars, I feel obliged to do that thing where you look in the rearview and try and get a once-over of the honker’s face, as if in doing so you can ascertain their whole life story.
Who is this restrained gentleman slash gentlewoman?
I’m too far away from the car to make out the driver’s face, but what I can make out are the leaves – those stubborn leaves that have now settled at the base of that polite driver’s windshield, just below the now dormant and powerless wipers.
Mark my word and fear not, dearest driver, those leaves will at some point dislodge from there and rattle around all of Tampa Bay before somehow reconstituting and settling for good on my lawn, where they will decompose and secrete an acid that will kill said lawn, in so doing clearing the way for all manner of mushroom and fungi that will spring up in its place once the air becomes so flush with moisture that showers are only advised when you’re “in for the night.”
You don’t have to take my word for it. But I would. I like to garden, tend to my backyard. When you’re out there every day you gain a pretty good understanding of the ecosystem. Everything plays a part, has a role, and I suppose my role is one of observing, notetaking, conveying to you how your windshield and my lawn are connected.
The sappy thing to say would be, “We are all one – and I’ve made it my job to articulate this truth via convincing data slash storytelling.”
But I digress.
Let me get a better look at you.
I gently press my flip flop to the brake. Seeing my brake lights glow, the driver behind me follows suit. I do it again. Same thing. I do it again. Same thing. I do it again.
Bingo.
The driver lost the plot, and now he slash she is on my tail, how you say “tailgating” me.
It only now occurs to me that in trying to get a better look at the driver, I’ve risked eroding his slash her patience, meaning the data I’m able to glean now may not match the data I meant to glean in the immediate seconds after the honk that was more like a toot.
Still, I need my once-over.
What I see is: a woman, a “her” (best I can tell), mid to late forties, maybe early fifties, dressed in what looks like Yoga apparel, arms completely exposed, arms thin and toned, arms strong even though thin, short hair, short hair like a bob, short hair that may actually be shorter than your typical bob, face glowing, face donning a smile, a smile that appears genuine and unforced, a mild yet profound smile that says, “I’ll give the driver in front of me the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he has turrets. Maybe he just has a foot condition that causes his foot to flinch crazily. Or maybe he’s just otherwise being a Dick-Kabob. I sure doubt that last one because I believe in the inherent decency of humanity, but say he really was just being a Dick-Kabob, I’m not going to let that affect me, because I’m impervious to the negative manifestations of others, I’m a cone of happiness, I’m in control, I’m sitting here, put-putting up 4th Street, enjoying my morning under this glorious St. Pete sun that is today paired with a subtle humidity that has been unfelt in months and which has done something biochemical to me that I can hardly explain but which I could wholeheartedly say has only made my day feel that much better. Life is good.”
Now here I am smiling too, thinking to myself, “Wow. Moments like these restore my faith in the inherent decency of humanity. We’re so like-minded—this woman and me!”
Sappy, I know. But with just one once-over, performed car-to-car, I’ve convinced myself that I have enough data to ascertain this driver’s life story, and now I’m projecting my positive perception of a single person onto the general public.
In other words, I’ve taken a sample. It’s called a sample. And don’t talk to me about bias. I only like hearing that word when I’m using it—when I’m identifying bias in other people.
I need one more look, so I take one more look.
Body language and appearance the same, which only hardens my rosy appraisal of this woman.
It’s only on the twice-over that I register that she’s driving a Prius, and that stuck to the front bumper of the Prius is a sticker of Earth, Earth like the planet, with the words “LOVE YOUR MOTHER” looped around it.
I wonder if this woman is going to the same place.
I turn onto 38th Ave. She turns too.
We’re going to the same place.
I suppose now’s the time to disclose where it is I’m going. I’ve stalled long enough with all this We’re All One Big Family crap.
Just look up my friend, past my dash. We’re here.
You see it?
You see that brand-spanking new hunk of a building that’s encased in a mote of pre-pubescent trees that are propped up with sticks and surrounded by accent shrubbery and mulch that is still the same color it was in its original packaging?
You see all those ribbons and those balloons and those streamers that they claim are biodegradable that they’ve affixed to the building’s gutter on one side and the parking lot light poles on the other, in so doing creating a festive canopy that also serves the practical purpose of shading all those people standing in line from a St. Pete sun that is today paired with a humidity unfelt in months?
You see those large green metal letters that were tediously fastened to the brown brick face of the building that, put together, in that configuration, spell that?
Can you read that?
Of course you can. You’re literate. I don’t mean to patronize you.
So yes, I’m here for the grand opening of a Whole Foods.
But don’t ask me why because I don’t quite know why.
But if you did ask me why, I might say something like, “I just had to see it for myself, ensure that it was filled with real food, not cardboard cutouts of stocked shelves, because, really, how many grocery stores can you fit onto 4th Street without some going belly up? It’s not like the sum appetite of the city has doubled overnight. Seems risky for them to open a location in such a saturated market.”
Of course, that would just be bluster, diversion.
So instead I might say something like, “Long are the days that I have to drive all the way to Tampa or Clearwater just to pick up my favorite negative-carb sourdough, and to be gifted such a convenience, for Corporate to have chosen to open a new location just three miles from my house, I just feel so thankful, so very thankful that it was only right that I come pay homage to this life-sustaining, time-saving, alkaline-rich watering hole.”
Though that’s even further from the truth. I have a lot of beef with how convenient our corporate overlords have made modern life. They achieve this convenience at the expense of things like—COUGH! —our privacy. I also have this nagging suspicion that the words chain store and health, Amazon subsidiary and nutrition, are mutually exclusive.
Could be wrong. But probably not. I’m an outlier, remember? I can see things others can’t.
Holy Hell are there a lot of people here.
That still-black asphalt lot is full. I mean every spot taken. The cop standing at the entrance just gave me the look like, “You don’t even want to try, Mister.” And the line of die-hards waiting to get in the doors rectangles the building not one, but one point five times.
Forget it. Not worth it. I don’t even know why I’m here.
Flip flop to accelerator.
I’m two intersections away from that fiasco. But now the inner narrative is going full Schizo.
Just go.
No, turn around.
Just go.
No, turn around.
Just go. Because: like you said, not worth your time.
No, turn around. Because: you’re here anyway, so be here. There’s always going to be a there there, so why not be here? For once, be here.
Just go!
No, turn around!
Just go!
No, turn—
Enough!
I’ve made my decision.
And my decision is: Corporate-Overlord-Tolerating Angel wins out because he makes a good argument, and plus I can’t seem to resist his riddle, which as per usual is clunky and mostly non-sensical but in today’s case albeit really resonates with me for some curious reason.
Sorry, Jaded Justice Warrior Angel. You can’t win out every day.
The decision has been made to turn back, so I turn back.
I pass the parking lot from the other side and somehow it looks even more packed than it was before. After some fretting (yes, needless in hindsight), I find a spot a couple blocks down in a residential neighborhood that’s probably never seen this much traffic—vehicular or foot.
And here I am walking up the street, dodging cars, judging the neighbor’s front-yard landscaping choices, stopping for a second to admire these gorgeous Canna Lilly bulbs that will soon bloom a most alluring orange flower, thinking, “This may just be a giant waste of time, but at least I got to see these chummies.”
And there it is: the line. Look at all those people standing single file like dumb, conditioned mammals. I’m like the black sheep of this gathering, and I mean that in a good way, and I know a sheep is also a mammal that’s susceptible to being conditioned, but I said black sheep, which is not your normal color sheep, the metaphor being I’m different, the metaphor being I’m not (or am less) susceptible.
So yeah, I’ll hop in that line too, but not before questioning why I’m doing it. That’s how I’m different.
But why, you ask. Why am I here?
I’m here to observe. To try to understand this phenomenon with greater depth and nuance. Mainline anthropological query being: Why are all these inherently decent people dimming their shine by engaging in such mindless, corporatized groupthink?
Actually, hold on. Are we off-record?
Okay. Truth is, that may only be part of the truth. Truth is, that may not actually be the truth at all.
Just then I get shoulder-checked by a lady who’s fast-walking clumsily.
“Sorry sir!” she squeals.
“That’s okay,” I say.
“Race ya!” she squeals.
Thirty strides up is the end of the line. The lady makes it there in half as many. For some odd reason, I now feel compelled to pick up my pace, shift gears to my own version of fast walk. So I do just that, then file in line right behind her.
She turns to me and says, “Woof is it hot today!”
“Sure is,” I say.
“Can’t remember the last time it was humid. But kinda feels nice if I’m being honest,” she says.
I feel a rush of something biochemical, then blurt, “I was just thinking that in the car ride here!”
“Something’s in the air!” she says.
“Ain’t that the truth,” I say, before thinking, “You know, in some cases, Ain’t is just the superior consonant. You don’t have to be the stereotype to use it.”
From around the corner of the building comes a chorus of muffled clapping and cheers. This prompts the lady in front of me to emit a “Hey now!” then to turn to face the back of the person in front of her. The line then begins to lurch forward, which prompts her to emit another “Hey now!” just with different inflection. I peer over her shoulder expectedly, then join her in the march.
“Crazy!” she exclaims, face still forward, feet still marching. “Doors weren’t supposed to open till nine!”
“That is crazy,” I say in contradiction of what I’m thinking, which is, “That’s not crazy in the slightest.”
This occasions Jaded Justice Warrior Angel, who’s apparently still salty that I decided to turn the car around, to hop on my noggin’s intercom and bark, “Say one thing and think the other—that’s the mark of Schizo.”
“If that’s the case that means we’re all Schizos,” I think-reply.
“And yet you claim to be different,” he says.
“Shut up, Jaded Justice Warrior Angel.”
I’d be lying if I said his comment didn’t give me pause. But the marching—rhythmic, near-uniform, and so, sort of hypnotic—soon drowns out all the thinky-feelies.
Then the marching stops, and I’m suspended in a pause again. Luckily, up ahead roughly five peeps is some new stimuli to distract me from any critical introspection.
That new stimuli consists of a dormant, Whole-Foods-Green golf cart with a mini truck bed in the back which, although mini, is still large relative to the golf cart it is fused with and a woman with an apron to match and an extreme smile so facial-muscle-defying it’s hard to look away.
My gaze is fixed on that smile like a thoughtless insect fixed on a porchlight as we lurch forward roughly five peeps. And now we’re standing right next to that smile and I’m still, even at this close range, failing to identify how it is this woman can keep her mouth in such pronounced tension for such a sustained time. Was she in possession of facial muscles that the rest of us lack? Or is this just the result of Botox gone too far? Can Whole Foods employees even afford Botox? Is Botox organic?
Oh, I get it. This woman is a Whole Foods employee by day and a ventriloquist by night. Because when she replied to Lady In Front’s “Hey now!” with a “Well hello there” her lips barely moved and her pearly whites remained completely exposed.
Ha Ha.
Only joking, of course. Because everyone knows the ventriloquist community is small, tight-knit, and frankly, a tad elitist, and you’d be crazy to assume that a woman who works at a Whole Foods by day would be welcomed into such a hallowed fraternity.
Ha Ha.
That’s another made up piece of boloney. If you couldn’t already tell, it makes me feel better about myself to invent stories about others that are as elaborate as my own. Yeah, I know. It’s a curious practice for a man who believes so strongly in the inherent goodness of his fellow man slash woman. You see the shine in others, and yet you put them down?
Maybe I really am a Schizo. Because there’s at least two parts to me—and these at least two parts are in conflict.
How’s that for critical introspection?
The woman with the smile leans over the side of the mini truck bed that, although mini, is still large relative to the golf cart it’s fused to and returns to vertical with two tan canvas bags, one in each hand.
Yes, these are tote bags, commonly shorthanded to the pithier and more hip and more cosmopolitan totes. And yes, emblazoned on the side of this tote that Woman With Smile is handing me is a tasteful design incorporating a large sun and a couple of palm trees with the Whole Foods logo and reference to St. Petersburg as “The Sunshine City.”
“Just a little gift to say thank you for your loyalty,” she says.
Lady In Front says “Thanks!” like she just won the lottery. I say “Thanks” like my dog just died but as a consolation for all the elective business I’d given the vet throughout the lifecycle of poor Puffy, I’m gifted an all-expense-paid vacation to Sandals Jamaica.
“Oh—and there’s some goodies inside!” Woman With Smile says as she loads up the next pair of totes for the pair behind us.
It’s here that I should mention that I knew ahead of time that they’d be handing out these freebies. Read it in the corporate press release announcing the grand opening, which I was directed to via a sneaky link on that app I probably shouldn’t have downloaded.
That’s not why I’m here though.
A tote bag filled with some coupons and commercial propaganda in the form of handouts, flyers, leaflets, pamphlets, brochures, and postcards with QR codes on them which, once scanned via smartphone camera, direct you to virtual versions of the handouts, flyers, leaflets, pamphlets, brochures?
C’mon. Who do you think I am?
If anything, I’m here to gauge just how off-base the filler portion of the press release was when it said:
“The store’s design draws inspiration from St. Petersburg—nicknamed the ‘Sunshine City’ for its association with sundials—with a prominent glowing sun greeting customers and decor elements throughout the space incorporating a palette of warm colors that make shopping for high-quality organic food that much more enjoyable.”
I’m a sucker for some vague, flowery language that hits you right where it feels good. But I’ve been burned many times in the past. Today is all about Distrust But Verify.
Just kidding.
That was all a lie—my own version of Filler.
I still don’t know why I’m here. But I do know that my confabulating is just getting more and more abstract.
The line lurches forward again.
And here we are, marching forward to our destiny alright, now just more awkwardly, less in unison, less in grace. Main reason for this is Lady In Front is walking in hunchback with her face buried in her tote like a dachshund flushing a mole-rat out of a hole. And now she’s just planted her feet like, “Hold on—I’ve got something! I think I’ve got something!”
Head still in tote, back still in hunch, she turns to ‘face’ me, and my reaction is to lock eyes with a guy in line behind us and give him a look like, “I swear I don’t know this lady.” Then with a finale exhale, her head arises from the sewn canvas and she’s staring at me with her version of extreme smile, saying “Look what I foundddddd!”
Now in goes her hand and she fishes out a driver’s license-sized piece of cardboard with rounded corners and a matte finish and a barcode and the words “SECRET SAVINGS” bolded in black and “Worth up to $100” italicized in Whole Foods Green.
“Free money—look at that!” she exclaims. Then she goes fishing again.
“But wait—there’s mooorrrrrre!” she says, and pulls out a circular sticker roughly the circumference of your standard candle.
On the sticker is a cartoon depiction of a wizard casting a spell out of the palm of his hand and the tagline: Feel like a Wizard. Amazon One.
You may recall that Amazon One is the name they’ve decided to use for their new “contactless checkout solution,” whereby in exchange for a biometric scan of your palm—which they’ll link to your Amazon Prime account and upload to a cloud database they swear is “so ironclad not even the Chinese could hack it”—you can spare yourself the hassle of reaching into your pocket and pulling out your credit card to pay for your groceries.
We get a detailed image of the unique combination of lines, ridges, and veins that makes you YOU—and you can buy a 6-pack of your favorite craft spiked Kombucha with the flash of your palm and not even get ID’d because, well, our SECURE BIOMETRIC DATABASE will tell us whether you’re of age anyways! A small price to pay for added convenience only we can provide!
Lady In Front, who now appears to have entered the Next Frontier of Excitable, sticks Amazon Wizard onto her shirt while emitting a weird half-laugh that is not of this world (think alien take on Beowulfian English). It’d be no stretch to assume that her whole week has been made by all this corporate propaganda cloaked as a freebie. She is Target Audience.
But when she sees that I’m not following suit with the sticker in my tote, her face sobers up, her demeanor becomes less assured.
“I know it’s Amazon, but—” she says, looking down at her sticker like it’s an illegitimate baby she’s about to leave on the steps of a fire station.
I give her the type of shrug that says, “No judgement from me.” You know, the Schizo thing to do.
Then she says, “I’m just so excited to have a Whole Foods near me. There aren’t many healthy food options around here. Goal this year is to drop thirty.”
I don’t have the heart to tell her that, in fact, there are a bevy of ‘health food stores’ just over there on 4th Street that aren’t owned by a megacorporation with a market cap nearing two trillion dollars. I also don’t have the heart to tell her that just because you get it at Whole Foods doesn’t mean it’s healthy. Sure, they don’t sell products that have nitrates or phosphates or artificial sweeteners in them, and that’s just peachy. But what about all those processed foods they sell that include Inflammatory No-Nos like seed oils and refined grains?
So instead, I say, as warmly as I can muster, “I’m sure you’re gunna do it,” then I retreat into my phone, back into that app I probably shouldn’t have downloaded.
She turns to face forward, pulls out her own phone, and begins to scroll aimlessly too.
I’ve brought her back to earth, zapped the excitement out of her day. Yippee. Well done.
Just as I’m about to get hit with something biochemical that best translates to guilt slash remorse, two twentysomething influencer-types walk by, one saying to the other, “Agh! Remind me to pick up that brand of almond butter I told you about. It’s so good—and so clean!”
It takes all that I have to not walk up to these nitwits and launch into an impassioned tirade in which I say something like:
“Did you know that it takes over three gallons of water to produce a single almond? No? And do you know how many almonds there are on your average almond tree? No? It’s ten thousand. Ten thousand almonds. So do the math. And do you know where the almond capital of the world is? No? So you don’t actually know where the almonds for your favorite almond butter come from? How eco-conscious of you. Well the answer is the Central Valley—as in the Central Valley of California. Curious, huh? Especially when you consider that California has been in a drought since, like, the OJ Simpson trial. How you figure? You try so hard to feign passion for mother nature. You’re so quick to berate others online who don’t repost the same doomsday pictures with the latest carbon emissions statistics overlayed. You lug around that Hydro Flask that’s the size of your head not because it’s trendy to do so (no, never) or because its color matches your aura (no, never), but because you don’t believe in plastic bottles. But let me ask you something. Are you an Amazon girl? Of course you are. Big same-day delivery girl? It’s convenient, right? At least one package a day, you say? What a loyal customer! So let me ask. Do you believe in the plastic packaging that all those items come in? And how do you explain away all the carbon those planes and semitrucks and delivery vans emit in the process of delivering that convenience you’re so accustomed to? How you figure? Huh? How you figure?”
Of course, I don’t say all that because that would be crazy. I only think all that and somehow that’s less crazy.
Jeez.
Why do I feel so angry right now?
Alright. We’ve turned the corner and I’ve reset.
Among me, in this line, are inherently decent people who’ve just had a tad too much of the Kool-Aid. They’re deserving of my goodwill and kindness. Have compassion for them. For they were not gifted the same ability you were to spot when we’re getting got.
Hummm. Think happy thoughts. Hummm. Interpret others’ actions in the most charitable way possible. Hummm. We’re all trying to do our best out here. Hummm. Intention over execution. Hummm. Content of character over degree of brainwash. Hummm. Nobody is the way they are on purpose. Hummm. We all have unsavory behaviors we developed unconsciously as a means of coping with whatever environment we grow up in. Hummm. You’re no different. Hummm. You have blind spots too. Hummm.
Agh for Christ Sakes! Did they really have to wheel out that Spin the Wheel that has just three measly prizes that all require that you sign up for Amazon Prime before you can redeem?
You’ve gotta be flippin kidding me. What a freakin’ racket! And look at those bozos spinning it like, “Hah, I can’t lose!”
Newsflash for you, Bozos: you’ll end up losing. Because as part of the sign-up process you’ll have to complete before you can redeem your Mini Protein Shake Frother Wand, you’ll need to put a credit card down. And after your one-month free trial of Amazon Prime is up (which you’ll forget you have), you’ll get a charge. And after going berserk about some random transaction on the CC, you’ll call your bank in a state of panic, thinking you’ve been hacked, thinking you’re the victim of senseless fraud. And mid-freakout with a customer service rep, you’ll realize where the charge is coming from, and you’ll feel relieved, and then you’ll feel bad for cursing at the customer service rep, but you won’t say sorry for cursing at the customer service rep because he slash she is a customer service rep and he slash she voluntarily signed up to be on the receiving end of all this terrible treatment so he slash she is used to it anyways. And as the customer service rep is still treating you like a King slash Queen (even after you’d found a way to merge the F word, the C word, the D word, the A word and a handful of historically non-offensive words like “Face” and “Waffle” into one dreadful yet seamless insult), you’ll resolve to take the time after work to cancel your now-not-free subscription. But when you get home, you’ll get distracted and you’ll forget to do that. And one more month will roll around, and the same thing will play out. Then after four months of this, you’ll say, “Well I’m paying for the damn thing so I might as well use it,” and you’ll place your first order, and that’s when the hook is set. And soon your new status quo becomes: Same-Day Delivery. And now you’re hooked for life. And with your steady business, Amazon founder Jeff Bozos can go and purchase status goodies like Whole Foods and the Washington Post or up and start a rocket company that allows him to live out his Star Trek nerd fantasies.
So yeah, if I see you spinning that Spin the Wheel just know you’re like the biggest Bozo to ever walk this Earth. And that’s Earth like the planet—the planet that’s wasting precious oxygen on you.
Whoa.
Hey now.
Hold it, partner.
Reel it in.
Come back to me.
Come back to me, Schizo.
Universe just presented you with an opportunity to not dip your toes in your stuff—and you failed. Failed with flying colors. F minus. Jeez Angry Bird, you’ve really spiraled. We’ve got a lot to work on here. You need to do better than this. Because this isn’t you. This isn’t the real you.
That’s okay though. We’re learning. We’re seeing. We’re beginning to understand just how disgusting this part of you is.
I hereby grant you a clean slate. But you’re going to need to do better. Because there will be more opportunities, more tests. That’s all that life is: a series of opportunities cloaked as obstacles to break free slash grow out of whatever backwards conditioning you were handed slash you developed.
And what was slash is your conditioning?
You know the answer. You know the answer.
I resolve to reset, so I launch back into the reset protocol.
Hummm. Think happy thoughts. Hummm. Interpret others’ actions in the most charitable way possible. Hummm. We’re all trying to do our best out here. Hummm. Intention over execution. Hummm. Content of character over degree of brainwash. Hummm. Nobody is the way they are on purpose. Hummm. We all have unsavory behaviors we developed unconsciously as a means of coping with whatever environment we grow up in. Hummm. You’re no different. Hummm. You have blind spots too. Hummm.
And look: in this more aware state that you’ll hopefully be able to stay in for more than ten seconds, you’re beginning to notice that you’re not the only one here who’s embarrassed that they’re standing in this line. In other words: there’s hope!
Look at that woman standing there all awkward and stuff, darting her eyes this way and that like a paranoid prairie dog, alternating between hands in pocket with tote dangling out and arms in cross with tote over her shoulder like every other breath. Her body language just screams, “I’M UNCOMFORTABLE!”
I wonder why she’s here. I wonder if she, like you, is wondering why she’s here.
And look at that guy up ahead who’s wearing a fedora and a collared shirt with the sleeves intentionally cuffed at the bicep and the shorts that hang above his knee and those breathable ‘athletic’ shoes that you’re meant to wear with no socks who’s standing in line next to his wife and adult daughter (who’re dressed similarly, just in the female persuasion) trying to project confidence by talking loudly but in doing so achieving the exact opposite.
And here he goes some more. This ought to be good.
“You realize we’re standing in this line to go to a grocery store,” he says to the wife he towers over. “I mean, stop to think about it. A grocery store. All these people—hundreds of people—standing in line for the opening of a grocery store. You can’t make this shit up. You just can’t.”
“Mmm,” the wife who dwarfs him in height mumbles.
“What?!” he says.
“Are you not one of the hundreds of people standing in line, Russell?” The wife who dwarfs him in height but not in comebacks says.
He scoffs.
“No one’s stopping you from leaving,” the wife who dwarfs him in height but does not let said height differential prevent her from speaking the truth.
“See I knew you were gunna say that,” he groans, “I just knew it!”
Everyone who can hear Russell, which is like everyone, knows the guy is the most self-conscious of all of us. He’s like an older and more refined version of the twentysomething who ‘soups up’ his Honda Accord so it can make fart noises even when he’s going fifteen in the school zone.
Although, on second thought, who’s worse? Him or me? At least he’s bearing his self-consciousness out in the open for all to see. I’m keeping my insecurities to myself, letting them fester internally, letting them metamorphize into figurative beings that play-act arguments on a loop. I wish I had someone to keep me accountable like Russell does. It can get crazy in this echo chamber. We all need some safe way to diffuse the negative energy. Although the key is to not build up all that energy in the first place.
Just then there’s a loud screeching noise that knocks an old man with a cane to the ground.
Three Whole Foods employees donning the Whole-Foods-Green aprons rush to his aid. All of us line-dwellers make the O formation with our mouths. The screeching drowns out the sound of our gasps.
After what feels like forever, the deathly sound is replaced with that electronic slash dance song with the utz utz base and the lyrics, Wave after Wave, Wave after Wave, slowly drifting. Drifting awaaayyy. You know the one.
Lady In Front’s head begins to bob to the music that I now surmise is emanating from a handful of speakers near the building’s entrance. This fills me with a smidge of relief. Because it turns out I haven’t completely rained on her parade after all.
Then the golf cart with a mini truck bed in the back which, although mini, is still large relative to the golf cart it is fused with whizzes by and parks outside one of the building’s service entrances. Woman With Smile hops out the passenger and enters the dark void that lies behind the door that has been propped open with a crate of Whole Foods-branded coconut water.
The chunk of us who aren’t watching the Whole Foods employee get the old man back on his feet have our eyes fixed on that dark void. What is Woman With Smile doing in there? Will she emerge again? Will she emerge with the same smile? These are the sort of things you concern yourself with when you’re standing in a boring old line.
Which leads me to my next point: when you’re standing in a boring line like this one you realize that standing in a boring old line is the great human equalizer. Think that guy’s a big hot-shot slash in a category of his own? Watch him stand in line. He’ll scroll aimlessly on his phone in silence just like you. Think that woman is mysterious slash in a category of her own? Watch her stand in line. Her eyes, like the eyes of everyone else in the line, will fixate on that group of people who’re walking by talking loudly.
When I’m standing in line at an airport security checkpoint I always wonder if the TSA agents gloat about this in the breakroom like, “Humans. Hah! Such a simple creature to control. All it takes is some signage and those elastic line separators that we think we look so cool rearranging, and they’ll organize on their own!”
A Whole Foods employee who was “doing the rounds” on foot posts outside the void, his head down as he leafs through a packet atop a clipboard. A number of us in the line give him a look like, “Scram – you’re blocking the void.”
He scrams on account of a call coming down on his radio saying, “Reinforcements at complimentary coffee and scone station, reinforcements at complimentary coffee and scone station.”
Our view of the void unobstructed again, the question I’m asking myself now is how the space beyond the door frame can be so dark. I mean, the door is open to the day—and a rather sunny one at that. How is that we can’t even make out shadows in there?
But before I can postulate a theory that draws on years of post-grad scholarship in optical physics (joke, fib, filler, lie), I’m distracted by another boggling anomaly that has just presented itself. All of us void-viewers are.
The all-black void is now all-black minus a gleaming white piece of macaroni, floating in the ether.
Our eyes are fixed on that florescent macaroni like insects who, though mostly thoughtless, are not so thoughtless as to overlook the fact that this florescent macaroni is abnormal.
And now it’s getting bigger and brighter, and perhaps owing to my boredom I find myself injecting unnecessary suspense into this innocuous and unimportant detail, my imagination entering stage left eager to invent and play-act. Never underestimate man’s need for intrigue – especially when he’s standing in a boring old line.
Any chance it’s a weather balloon?
Shaped like a piece of macaroni? Negative.
Any known bugs or glitches in your Infrared?
Negative.
Any visible method of propulsion?
Negative.
Well screw me six ways to Sunday with a grapefruit and air it on the morning news. We’ve got a Platinum-47. Call it in.
What’s a Platinum-47?
UFO sighting. Get as much footage as you can, then zip back to base for processing. Congress is gunna be up our ass about this one.
For a second, I can begin to make out faint shapes bounding the floating macaroni, then Woman With Smile emerges from the void, the rest of her body visible again, her teeth no longer fluorescent now that they’re in the sun.
Cap’n. It’s me. Do you copy?
Loud and clear.
False Alarm. I repeat: False Alarm. It was just Woman With Smile doing what Woman With Smile does: never breaking her smile – even in dark voids.
Roger. Happens to the best of us. We’ll destroy the footage when you get back. Don’t want any misinterpretations.
Copy.
But I be damned, Lieutenant. Said it before, I’ll say it again: we’ve gotta find a way to weaponize this broad.
Cradled in Woman With Smile’s arms is a cardboard box filled with—you guessed it—more totes. She dumps them into the mini truck bed that, although mini, is still large relative to the golf cart it is fused with and trots back into the dark void.
The line lurches forward.
But instead of lurching forward with it, Lady In Front darts in the direction of the dark void. And when I say darts, I mean darts. This lady is cooking.
And just as she’s about to clear the door frame, the two of them collide, Lady In Front sustaining the impact on her two feet while emitting the grunt of a linebacker, Woman With Smile falling to the ground along with the box of refill totes.
Now us line-dwellers have the sort of drama we’ve been fiending for.
What’s going to happen next? Will an argument ensue? Will an argument ensue that gets so heated it turns violent? Will the authorities be called? Will one of us have to get in between them before the authorities arrive, playing the role of a sort of ‘stopgap authority?’ Will Whole Foods then have to issue a public apology? Will there, as a result, be additional freebies – a sort of “sorry for all the drama” consolation?
In my periphery, I swear I see money exchange hands. In my periphery on the other side, I swear I see a woman shush a pedestrian riding by slowly on a bike blaring Rush Limbaugh re-run rants on a portable speaker. In my periphery on that same side, I swear I see the woman’s husband back up her shush with a look that says, “Turn that crap off, you nut. Or step on it. We’ve got a situation happening in real time here.”
Lady In Front recovers quickly, her adult ADHD apparently staving off the dull pain of a cardboard edge to the gut. But Women With Smile takes a little longer to gather herself, and it’s here, while she’s on the ground, that we now return to the more important question.
Will she break her smile?
Our heads are cranked to the side like dumb puppies when you say “treat treat” as we await our answer. This is a high-stakes drama—the high-stakes drama of our morning. Everything seems to be moving in slow motion. It’s all been leading up to this.
AND SURVEY SAYS—
NEGATORY.
Her lips never close—not even for a millisecond.
There’s a standing ovation in my mind’s eye – Hoos, Haas, Hoo-aahs, the whole gamut. Then, among the chorus of claps, Cap’n gets on the intercom and says, “Like I said, Lieutenant – we gotta weaponize this broad. Chinese won’t know what hit em’.
As I look around, I can tell other line-dwellers are play-acting similar things in their heads. Although that could just be a complete misread on my part. I might, in fact, be the only one doing this, which is a scary proposition because maybe there really is some credence to this whole Schizo thing.
Only kidding of course. Pair my vivid imagination with me standing in a boring old line and this is what you get. Sue me.
With Lady In Front’s help (think: spotter at a squat rack hoisting a squatter up), Woman With Smile returns to vertical, the box of totes in her arms.
“Sorry ma’am,” Lady In Front squeals, “But I was wondering if could grab another tote for my friend.”
“Well of course!” Woman With Smile beams without skipping a beat.
It’s here that I get a hit with something biochemical that best translates to respect slash admiration. What I just witnessed was grace under pressure, smiling through adversity—literally. You’re alright, Woman With Smile. Sorry for all those thought-comments about Botox and the such. This new Whole Foods is lucky to have you on their roster. Your strength is an inspiration.
Or as Lady In Front just put it, “You’re the bomb dot org!” She fast-walks back to her spot in line with a tote in each hand and a wide smile of her own as if that whole charade didn’t just happen. I do a scan of the line and fail to see anyone else wearing the same look of befuddlement I have on. Apparently they’ve already moved on from that bit of theatre. And I suppose I should too.
When she gets back, Lady In Front turns to no one in particular and provides her justification for grabbing another freebie. “My friend Penny was supposed to meet me here but she got a call from the school saying her son needed to be taken home after he blew chunks on the Smartboard. Guess he didn’t like what the teacher was teaching. Ha ha. Only kidding. Something’s going around. Anyways, I promised her I’d pick her up a bag. She’s also trying to lose thirty. We’re in a sort of ‘lose thirty by the end of the year’ pact.”
I wonder what I should reply—or whether I should even reply. I find it telling that she’ll no longer look me in the eye. Though I could be reading into that a little too much. Some people do the Stevie Wonder when they talk: eyes up to the heavens, head bobbing every which way. I suppose life is too intoxicating for them to fix their gaze on any one place. That—or they’re just socially awkward.
Luckily, the woman directly behind me takes the bait so I don’t have to. Up until a couple minutes ago, she’d been on a Facetime call with four friends trying to arrange a bachelorette party for a fifth.
“Yeah I had a client meeting that didn’t take as long as it was supposed to and I saw the sign for the grand opening and I thought, ‘What the Heck?!’” she says, poking her head around my average frame.
Apparently, best practice when you endeavor to break the ice with a stranger around here is to lead with your justification for standing in the boring old line. I never got this memo. Though I don’t know what I’d say if I decided to small-talk-it-up. Why am I standing in this line? The answer still eludes me.
“Oh nice!” Lady In Front squeals.
“Yeah and I love these totes,” Woman Behind says.
“Aren’t they great?!” Lady In Front squeals.
They become fast friends from here, exchanging sweet nothings for far longer than I’d be able to exchange sweet nothings with, like, anyone on the face of this Earth—and that’s Earth like the planet. I’ll spare you the nitty gritty. But of note, at one point after I’d hopscotched Lady In Front so she could bond with her new friend face-to-face without me in the crossfire, we passed a cardboard cutout of that same cartoon wizard from the sticker and I heard Woman Behind say, “Thing is, I don’t know how I feel about that palm-reading thing.”
And let me tell you, it took all I could to not launch into a thought-tirade in which I railed against her naiveté like:
“That’s what they all say, Sugardunce! I’d believe you if you were still communicating via pager and fax machine. But no, you’re not. Instead, you’re arranging a bachelorette party in Scottsdale, Arizona via a four-way high-def video call you initiated with a tap on the buttonless screen of a smartphone that has millions of times more processing power than any of the mission control computers used to land Neil Amstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and that other nerd on the moon. I bet if I tried to tell you about FaceTime twenty years ago, you would’ve said something similar, like, “I don’t know about that. Why wouldn’t I just call them? Or talk to them in person? And why would anyone spend money on a Destination Bachelorette Party? And what the hell is in Scottsdale?” That’s the thing about technology: it’s a large, Silicon Valley-sized bowling ball rolling down a never-ending hill, picking up more and more speed with every quarterly earnings report. There’s no stopping it. You either get on board or join the Amish. We always want to draw a line in the sand, tell ourselves, “That’s a bridge I’m not willing to cross.” But with a little time and a lot of social conditioning—"Well I don’t want to be the only one who doesn’t have a VR headset”—we cave. We’re weak like that. And because we’re weak like that, we become slaves to tech bros like Jeff Bozos and the market makers on Wall Steet who supply him with a seemingly limitless Research and Development budget. So yeah, it’s only a matter of time before you’re buying your favorite organic cauliflower tortilla via a highly-invasive and completely-unnecessary biometric scan of your palm. Because soon paying with plastic will be “SO…LAST…YEAR!”
But no, I did no such thing.
I rightly saw this as the universe presenting me an opportunity to not dip my toes in my stuff. And by not engaging in it, I’ve grown stronger and wiser and more zen.
Have someone in a hazmat suit use a radiation detector on me and all it will pick up is “Hummm.”
Right?
Right. We’ve turned the last corner, and up ahead I see our final obstacle to an unparalleled organic grocery experience: still-unblemished automatic doors that are refracting whatever slivers of light have managed to pierce through the shade canopy of those supposed biodegradable streamers.
And now here I am moving quick, quick, quick. Reason for this is there’s a fork in the line. You can either pace the length of the building to the final destination virtually unabated or continue on in a separate boring old line that first pit stops at the complimentary coffee and scone station.
I choose to pace.
No need to waste any more time than I already have. I’m not here for the Whole Foods-branded coffee and scones—this I’m certain of. I think by now I’ve established that nothing they’re doling out is really free. I’m sure the second I get into the building I’ll see a dumb little stand stacked with the same coffee and scones and a dumb little sign that says something like, A Perfect Pairing. Because, folks, the only thing better than free stuff, is the same stuff you end up paying for on your own after ‘discovering’ it via a free sample.
Boy do we underestimate just how much this illusion of discovery influences our consumer habits. Like wake up people, wake up! Above us, in the unseeable ether, exists a coterie of profit-hungry puppeteers who’re pulling our strings every chance they can get, passing us back and forth amongst themselves, shaking us for every dollar we’ve got.
Thanks, Bobby – I’ll take it from here. Get some rest—and give my best to the Missus. Catch you on shift change.
Free will only exists when you can see the simulation at play in every scene of your life and adjust accordingly. Sure, it requires a certain rigidity. But I’d much rather live in reality than play the role of Useful Idiot Number Umpteenth Billion, bumbling around, making predictable (and monetizable) decisions that I didn’t actually consciously make at all, living off social media-generated dopamine hits and mocked-up outrage porn: my life one big alternation between shortsighted pleasure-seeking and needless, repeated, unaddressed (and so, at some point, self-inflicted) suffering.
Hey, Tim, me again. How was your shift?
Eh, same old, same old. Though that Smart Alec is back. Still thinks he’s impervious to our machinations. Jokes on him, though. He’s been standing in that Whole Foods line for the last thirty. Everyone’s got some buttons on em’ they don’t know they have. And like Boss-Man says, “Our job is to find those buttons—then press em’.”
Hooah.
Alrighty. Time to skedaddle.
Take it easy. See you on shift change.
The fork in the line is where I part from Lady In Front, Woman Behind, and the rest of the cast of characters whom I’ve grown to know and judge. Good riddance, brainwashed humanoids! I have no doubt that under all that brainwash are smart, aware, and insightful people. I did my best to keep this in mind. You should’ve seen how jolly and optimistic I was on the car ride here. But honestly, I come away from this experience disappointed. The rot is worse than I thought.
Perhaps that’s too strong a characterization.
Then again, maybe it’s not.
Now I’m pacing alright. Big strides. Forgot my legs could move like this. To my right, I can now see the coffee and scone station: a collapsable table dotted with small paper shooters and plates. Behind it are two Whole Foods employees doling them out humbly yet hurriedly as if people working those water stations along a marathon route.
Hah – like these Sheeple have achieved anything worthy of nourishment today!
Sayonara, Sheeple!
Next to that station is the DJ Booth and the DJ, flanked by two large speakers, from which emit that song that goes: Apple Bottom Jean-Jeans, Boots with the Fur—the Fur!—the whole club was looking at her! You know the one. If you were at least of middle school age by around the time the 2008 Financial Crisis hit, I promise you know the one.
In the foreground of the table where all his equipment sits is a laminated poster resting precariously on a miniature easel. On it, in familiar WordArt font, is the guy’s DJ name.
LIQ-WID FYRE
What a prestigious gig you managed to clinch here, DJ LIQ-WID FYRE. Other than you and Lady In Front, I counted at least one person bobbing their head. What a party. I mean, an all-out rager, really.
And, oh, look, to my left is a crew from FOX 13 Tampa Bay, a large camera with the cord that snakes back to a white van that’s double-parked in the handicap zone pointed in the direction of the DJ and the coffee slash scone station.
No pressure, DJ LIQ-WID FYRE, but I reckon that behind the frame exists at least two other people who’re bobbing their heads as they watch live coverage of your set from the comfort of their nursing home. Because Good Vibrations know no bounds!
I look squarely into the camera as I pass it and flash the type of eyebrow-smile combo that says, “Hah! Can you believe this? All these people here for the opening of a grocery store? How ridiculous!”
But when I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the glass doors right before they slide open for me, I see that the smile-eyebrow combo on my face is one that suggests something very different.
No, on my face is the type of smile-eyebrow combo that says:
“Hey, look, I know I’m at risk of coming off as a creeper slash loser, me being here all by my lonesome on a Wednesday at nine in the morning and the such, so I’m just going to get out in front of it and flash a smile-eyebrow combo that’s intended to acknowledge the ridiculousness of my being here, but because I’ve fretted so much about how I’m perceived in this moment, said smile-eyebrow is going to come out slightly off – a sort of byproduct of performance anxiety that has the unintended effect of making me look even more like the creeper slash loser I was trying so hard not to look like.”
Shit.
Sometimes you just can’t win.
I’m in. All this lead up, and I’m in. I’m finally in.
And, oh, what do you know, there’s a dumb little stand stacked with coffee and scones with a dumb little sign that says, “Start Your Day Off Right.”
Bugga, guessed wrong.
Though same diff.
And now I’m experiencing that phenomena where you enter structure and it instantly feels ten times larger than how it looks from the outside. I’m taking it all in, head bobbing every which way. A guy to my left is doing the same just with a look of awe as if he’s beholding the eighth wonder of the world.
A palette of warm interior colors and features? Check. More non-cardboard shelves stocked with non-cardboard food than you think required? Check. A crowd of people raiding the tote bag section because, look, Gee Whitakers, they have ones in different colors and designs? Check. A well-dressed couple here on vacation from some Eastern European country who’re vlogging in real time, via extra-long selfie sticks, the inside of a brand-new Whole Foods?
Seriously?
And I’m out. All that lead-up, and I’m out.
It’s a grocery store, alright. A well-lit, visually pleasing grocery store that happens to smell like a mix of freshly squeezed orange juice, candle wax, and earthy protein powder that may well just be baking soda blended with peat moss.
But what did you expect? What more were you hoping for?
I shrug.
Was it a giant waste of time?
Yes. Yes it was.
Are you breathing your first deep breath since hopping in that line now that you’re a block away from it all?
Yes. Yes you are.
Have you finally relaxed the hand that’s been gripping your tote like a crumpled old newspaper since the minute Woman With Smile offered it to you?
Yes. Yes you have.
Are you now clutching it loosely from the canvas handle like everyone else and carelessly swinging it back and forth?
Yes. Yes you are.
Have the neighbor’s Canna Lilies bloomed yet?
No. No they haven’t.
Are they still beautiful?
Yes. Yes they are.
What is it about being in a car that’s so comforting?
I’m thinking not of the physical comforts and conveniences—an ergonomic seat that heats and cools, Bluetooth, park-assist, AC that pumps—but of those less apparent and unseeable ones.
Is it just that the car is, in a sense, a home on wheels – something that’s mine, something that’s familiar?
Is it that, within the confines of this car, exists an environment that I have total control over – the audio, the temperature, the speed with which I’m moving down the asphalt, the direction I’m heading?
Does it have something to do with the monkey mind? How the ginned-up wind that floods the zone with a mere crack of a window can silence it? How the slideshow of images that present themselves in rapid succession through the frame of the windshield can render the thought loops inert?
Can you boil it down to the fact that that the car allows me to see so much of the world, just from a remove?
Perhaps you can.
Then again, maybe it’s all the above plus some other things I’ll never be conscious of – one of those complex equations in life you’ll never solve because you’re a subjective, blind-spot-ridden being so there are limits to your comprehension.
To perceive is not to know.
This I know.
Just then the light turns red.
I’m on the opposite side of the intersection where, earlier this morning, I had my head down in the app I probably shouldn’t have downloaded. I turn the AC on because my body has finally warmed to the positively stale, baked air of a car that sat in the sun. A man rolls by on one of those Pedal Pubs that Woman Behind and her friends will likely hop on one drunken afternoon during their Scottsdale trip.
“That’s fun,” I think.
I also think, “Does this guy commute into downtown every day in this thing? Because if he does, that’s a lot of pedaling. And I wonder what his neighbors think of his chosen profession. Do they find the bright yellow hunk an eyesore when it’s sitting there on his driveway?”
I look to my left to see a young mother yelling something at her car-seat-confined child through the rear-view. For them, the car represents something other than comfort.
I look to my right to see a man in a paint-stained shirt belting Celine Dion with all eleven of his teeth. For him, the car represents something better than comfort.
The light turns and he gooses it. The effect is two things. The first being that Celine Dion’s voice becomes fainter and fainter until it sounds like that of a squeaking mouse who’s nevertheless managed to hold a killer octave. The second being that an orange Home Depot-branded caulking gun flies out the bed of his beat-up pickup and bounces around the pavement unpredictably like a bead of water on a hot stainless-steel pan.
I swerve to dodge it then ready my middle fingers because this is one of the few cases where road rage is warranted. There’s a kid on the road for crying out!
Up ahead is another red light, also known as: My Opportunity to be Brave on Behalf of the Children.
But before we reach it, the pickup abruptly turns on a dime, crossing three lanes, jumping the center divider, catching the type of air you see in movies, and barely dodging oncoming traffic before coming to a screeching halt in that rundown lot on the other side of the street.
“There’s a kid on the road for crying out!” I yell, this time out loud.
Incensed (and rightly so), I do a once-over via my driver-side mirror.
What I see is: Man With Eleven Teeth laughing hysterically through those eleven teeth as he hops out the pickup and runs over to a man twice his size who’s standing between a giant hunk of black metal and a slightly less giant piece of plywood, on which, in squiggly spray-painted font, it reads:
SMOKED MULLET (LIKE THE FISH)!
By the looks of it, the two are old friends. And while engaging in a joyous embrace, Man With Eleven Teeth jokingly attempts to lift Man Twice His Size off the ground but because Man Twice His Size is twice his size there’s no lift-off. And after disbanding from their hug, the two of them stand hunched over with their elbows on their knees as they bust out laughing some more not just over this friendly needling, but Man With Eleven Teeth’s crazy, Dukes-of-Hazzard entry into the rundown lot that, years ago, was home to that gas station that the city forcibly shuttered after determining it was the source of the contaminated fuel that resulted in that throng of broken down vehicles all across Pinellas County.
And now Man Twice His Size opens his metal contraption, and smoke billows out and I see Man With Eleven Teeth mouth OOOOOO–WEEEEEE, and it’s all love, and it’s all laughs.
And now, as the light turns green and the flip flop hits the accelerator, here I am smiling and chuckling to myself as if the third old friend the other two were talking about, forgetting that just seconds ago I was gearing up to flip some birds.
I sure hope this area can retain its local flair.
That lot is like an island unto its own now– the last vestige on 4th Street for pop-up vendors hawking not just Smoked Mullet like the fish, but rip-off Persian rugs that actually hail from China, oversized American flags that you can rig to the top of your car, and bargain patio furniture that’s been sold and resold more times than you’d like to know.
But I worry it’s only a matter of time before a developer comes in and does the grunt work of yanking out all those kiosks and underground storage tanks and something like a Lulu Lemon pops up in its stead.
Then: no more Smoked Mullet like the fish, or rip-off Persian rugs that actually hail from China, or oversized American flags that you can rig to the top of your car, or bargain patio furniture that’s been sold and resold more times than you’d like to know.
And that’s the thing.
These talking heads love to recite that old adage “all politics is local.” But with every passing day, I become more and more convinced that the more accurate adage is “all politics is national.”
And that’s just a damn shame.
People love to rag on the Florida Man. But Florida wouldn’t be Florida without him.
And there are always second, third, fourth-order effects that you can’t foresee when you tinker with an ecosystem.
When I turn onto 9th Ave, it’s like something happens. Like the monkey mind has been replaced with the mind of a human who just completed a triathlon or something. I feel clearer, more at peace. There’s only one voice in my head now – and it’s the one most tuned to reality. Jaded Justice Warrior Angel, Cap’n, and all my other multiplicities have retreated back into the dark holding room they go to when I’m not indulging them. I imagine them anxiously pacing around in there as they watch a live feed of my consciousness on a floor-to-ceiling TV, ready to swoop in and aggravate any semblance of a negative thought.
Maybe this feeling of clarity has something to do with those dead oak leaves that are still whirling around in the air, performing a sort of hypnotic number for my benefit. Or with how, when I look up at their former proprietors who line the street on either side, I see life anew, already visible just days after the purging: yellow-green dots where leaves used to belong. When you zoom out, the effect is that the trees themselves—now but an amalgam of dots—appear pixelated. And as I whiz by one after the other, I can’t help but question whether I’ve just stumbled upon a glitch in the Matrix. It’s a wondrous affair.
Note to Self Most Tuned to Reality: Oak Trees may be a positive anchor for you.
Secondary Note to Self Most Tuned to Reality: Despite aforementioned hassle associated with leaf dumpage, Oaks are your friend.
The truth is that I let myself go at the Whole Foods. Played what my therapist slash life coach slash whatever you want to call him calls the “Blemish Game.” Only saw the worst in others. Caricatured them. Gave them demeaning nicknames. Made assumptions. Gaslighted their flaws – real or perceived. Judged them as harshly as I judge myself. Focused the spotlight away from me and onto them so I could get a break from the self-flagellating – the self-flagellating that occurs far more often than I’m conscious of – the self-flagellating that continues to dictate so much of my life – a constant force working in the background, influencing almost every decision.
Putting and keeping distance between myself and others: that’s my specialty alright.
It’s one thing to accept that your operating system is malformed. It’s another to do the work day in and day out, minute by minute, thought by thought, to fix it.
I need to do better.
I will do better.
Because at the end of the day, I’m just toiling with my own happiness. And my happiness is no one’s responsibility but my own.
When someone says they’re insecure about something, what they’re basically saying is, “I’m a masochist and I’m okay with it.”
I still, too often, forget this. Indenture myself into servitude – a voluntary slave to thought patterns that don’t serve me anymore.
I hook a left.
Then another left.
Then a right.
Greeting me as I pull onto my street is my next-door neighbor Todd who’s too politically obsessed for my liking (cable news on at all hours of the day, visible through his front window), but who’s nevertheless a friendly, well-meaning man who’s never made a fuss about the Bougainvillea I planted two seasons ago that has since taken over our shared fence like King Kong on that Empire State Building. He’s out walking Tater, his obedient hound mix who’s all love, no bark.
I give him one of those neighborly waves and can instantly tell that this catches him off guard because, let’s face it, he’s usually the initiator of the neighborly wave.
I continue up the street, then do a once-over in my driver-side.
What I see is: Todd’s pronounced calves, flashing quick smiles with every step.
That’s Todd. Happier than most. Or at least that’s how he presents. Of course, there’s no way you can be a toe-walker and not appear happy-go-lucky. But I’ve watched him from afar long enough to notice that there’s a little extra pep in that toe-step.
Takeaway: I did that.
Me.
I actually did that.
Good.
Good.
Progress.
Now inside my peach bungalow, I trot back to the pantry slash overflow storage room. I hold the tote up to the yellow light and admire the design one more time. Then I loop it on a hangar and loop the hangar on the wardrobe rack.
There. Now it hangs amongst friends: Trader Joes St. Pete, Whole Foods Tampa, Whole Foods Clearwater, Whole Foods Sarasota, Fine Gardening Magazine, Horticulture Magazine.
I behold them as a collective—my ever-expanding community of totes—then flip the light.
And you don’t have to say it because I’m already thinking it.
Hypocrite.
During a session about a month back, my therapist slash life coach slash whatever you want to call him likened me to a little boy poking at an anthill from the safety of a long stick.
“Point is that you’re deeply curious about people, but you have a timidness about putting yourself out there, letting others in, letting them see the real, non-concocted you,” he said.
I retorted with the usual stuff about how, sure, I’m more introverted and have a social battery that dies out quickly, but this mode of being has armed me with a heightened capacity to observe and reflect and think and I wouldn’t give that up for the world.
And this is when things got a little testy.
“Sure,” he said in his leading way, “But there can come a point where someone has crawled so far up into themself that all they can do is misread, misinterpret, misunderstand.”
I nodded weakly with hollow eyes, but the inner narrative was going berserk, multiplicities mobilizing to confabulate a defense to the death. “Well that still beats being one of those people whose life is basically charted by successive hits of socialization. If you can’t go a day on your own without human interaction are you really living? Don’t they see how pathetic that is? Haven’t they heard that the unexamined life is not worth living?” I thought-grumbled.
“Now stay with me,” he said, intuiting my reflexive dissonance. “You were conditioned to retreat into yourself, to find solace there, to live what you call a ‘vivid interior life.’ Key word: Conditioned. Meaning you weren’t the architect of this personality. Does that not bother you? Get under your skin a little bit?”
Here’s when the head stopped nodding, the eyes filled with something resembling anger. It wasn’t so much my conditioning that was getting under my skin—it was him.
“Listen here,” he continued, voice again resonant like a narrator, “We’re meant to share in, not monopolize. To give, not take. And at your core there’s this really tender part of you that wants to connect with others—that wants to help lift them up. My only hope is that you can learn to tap into that. Because until you can, it’s just going to be much of the same.”
The nodding returned. He was back to Good Cop, and I was back to listening with open ears because, oh, he sees something redeemable in me after all. Let the God Complex flowith back! I’m tender—he thinks I’m tender! And being tender is a good thing. I’m tender and benevolent. That’s what I am. Quite literally God’s gift to earth. Suck on that, regular folk!
“Yeah but I see all the pretense, the bias, the mythmaking, the stating of feelings as fact, opinions held as objective truths. Am I to just discount all this? Live in La La Land with them?” I asked.
“No, no, no,” he said. “It’s important to live in reality—and to hold others to account when they’re not doing the same. But in a compassionate way. They didn’t ask for whatever cards they were dealt – just like you didn’t ask for the cards you were dealt.”
He closed his leatherbound notebook and began to sit up in his chair – a dead giveaway that the long hand of the clock behind me was about to cross the twelve again.
“And keep in mind that for some people, conversation is less about the words and more about the act itself.” he said. “You might remember that the next time you’re out in public and you find small talk suddenly thrust on you.” He did air quotes when he said thrust – a callback to a conversation we had long ago where I was all emotional dribble, acting like I had no agency in my life (barf).
After we shared a laugh at Past Me’s expense, he stood up and motioned to the door. Once there, we shook hands and repeated the farewell we’ve been repeating for years.
“Analysis Paralysis,” he said in the way he always says it.
“Analysis Paralysis,” I replied in the way I always reply.
I’d suppressed memory of that session until now.
I’m presently out back, meandering about my tropical oasis, watering and admiring my chummies.
You could say that this act alone is a form of therapy, and, like therapy, it’s got me contemplating.
Look, that lady in front of me in the Whole Foods line – sure, she was a tad brainwashed. But that wasn’t the most important thing about her. No, the most important thing about her was that she was an unadulterated bundle of joy who was excited to share in some semblance of community. I was too wrapped up in my own stuff to appreciate this. But now I’m kicking myself for not asking her name.
I need to drop this rigidity thing. It’s not noble. In fact, it’s something very different: a crutch I lean on, my out, my excuse not to engage.
And anyways, purity is hard to come by in this life. We’re all born at random in a context we have no control over.
Today, that context consists of Big Tech, Apps We Probably Shouldn’t Download, Nuclear Apocalypse On A Hair Trigger, Climate Change either as Worse Than Nuclear Apocalypse And Artificial Intelligence Combined or Biggest Hoax Ever, depending on who you ask.
But I’ll take it.
The alternative is the Amish and I’m not an Amish nor do I have any intention of becoming one.
A Torch Ginger blooms a somewhat-faded flower when planted in soil with a high pH level. But even in these conditions, it is among the most vibrant flowers you will ever come by.
I should know.
I’m eyeing one right now with a warmth and adoration I reserve for far too few occasions.
Hey, you.
Just then my phone buzzes.
I reach for it with the hand that’s not gripping the nozzle.
It’s a notification from my Ring Camera (yet another Amazon subsidiary) alerting me to activity at the front door.
I open the app to see a beaming Mormon donning the characteristic white short-sleeve button-up and clutching a horde of brochures.
I drop the hose. I fast-walk back inside. I take a deep breath. I put on the widest smile I can muster. I open the door.
We get to talking.
For no real reason other than the fact that he wanted to make a convert out of me, we get to talking.
Jack- Thanks for sharing this. I particularly love how observant you were. Your writing is a great reminder to always be living with eyes and mind wide open. Hope you're well this week. Cheers, -Thalia