behind the bacon

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So I’m in Wal-mart the other day. I live there. Seriously, I think I could get mail there, and they would hold it for me. That’s how often I am in that circus. So anyway, I am making the whatever number trip that week, this time babyless, so of course, I had on a dry-clean only cute dress because that’s what you do when you have a babysitter. You dress up for Walmart. The point – I approved of my outfit which is one thing that sort of comes less and less often when you’re dealing with one year olds and anything edible. But I digress. I was shopping for everything I had forgotten when I had gone the day before, and I was sort of in a rush. The babysitter wasn’t going to stay forever – and I was trying to squeeze a 20 minute trip to the Madison-Mom Black-Hole aka Wally-World in 10 minutes. I get to the checkout counter and unload all of my 15 or so items onto the conveyor belt.

This is the part where I switch personalities, but first you should know this. I was once in a high pressure, fast pace sales management position with a medical equipment company here in town. I breathed sales. I loved it, and I was great at it. This is for another blog altogether, but many precious things in my life suffered for it, and much of the memory of that company is infected with the scars of bad consequences in my life that I paid for working there.

One specific incident: I was very close to the owner of the company, and she backed me 100%. Many of her relatives worked for her also, but it didn’t matter who was challenging me – she had my back. I was managing her company. It needed to be that way. One day, a relative of the owner broke a rule that I had set for office employees regarding the sales representatives and their referral sources. I confronted the girl, and she proceeded to shout curses at me that would make a sailor blush in the middle of the company. She was fully aware that the second she did this it would cost her her job, but she was a fighter and obviously full of some major resentment.

I don’t remember the words she said to me that day. I remember that she dropped the f-bomb here and there, but that’s all I remember. I DO remember how I was shaking in shock, frustration, anger, and embarrassment in front of an entire office that I was supposed to be running at age 23. I was so MAD at her. She left the office that day, and I didn’t see her back in there until months later. She was friendly, and everything seemed to be easy. No games. No fakeness. Normal.

Jump to 2 years later in Walmart, and look behind the bacon. There I am. Dryclean only feelin all cute dress and all. I had just put all of my items onto the checkout counter when for some reason my checker lady says absolutely nothing, acts as if she never saw me spins, around on her heels, turns off her number and walks away. Seriously, I had just put 15 items onto her counter. Odd… So Here I am standing by myself in the line, when I see sailormouth girl in the lane next to me. She is getting her receipt back and is about to be standing about 24 inches from my cart.

I am generally a confident girl – not too easily intimidated; I love a challenge; I love meeting people; and I love to see how life develops. I wouldn’t call myself a turtle. I don’t hide too much. I have lots of other major issues, but too much time in my shell just doesn’t happen to top my list. Apparently, sailormouth girl was going to be proving me wrong for the day, because upon laying my eyes on her, I was in a four walled room with nowhere to hide. 

I searched my buggy and the counter for something large that I could be loading one way or the other. I had about 2.2 seconds for the wide-right buggy turn and she would be at a 90 degree angle with my face. The biggest thing there was the pack of Oscar Meyer, so I went for it. I now had a pack of bacon in front of my face like I was packing ice on a wound from a left hook. With my other hand, I furiously loaded things back into my cart from my checkerladyless aisle.

I was consciously humiliating myself in front of myself. Not fun. Sailormouth girl paused in front of my cart, and I don’t know of she was just regrouping her kids or if she was seriously trying to figure out if the half-face of mine she could see was really mine and why in the HELL (cuz she’s a sailormouth) is the other half of her face behind that pack of bacon? I’m not a sailormouth, and that’s what I was thinking…. 

I was mad at myself for the rest of the day….

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