Encounters with Strangers Posted by Oaktown Girl, 17 May 2007 07:34 pm

Encounters with Strangers (#1): Sour Candy

[Dateline: February 8, 2007, 6:45pm. Oakland, CA.

Situation: It’s just after work; I’m moderately stressed because I just started a new job and have to learn a thousand new things. Plus, I’m trying to adjust to working days after a year on the graveyard shift, which is proving to be a surprisingly difficult transition both physically and mentally.

Scene: A small Mexican restaurant, primarily take-out, with just a few tables. The only other customers are a man sitting at one of the tables eating his food, and one woman standing who’s just finished placing her order at the counter. She’s White and appears to be in her early 30’s.]
*************

I place my food order with the young woman behind the counter and give her my money. She gives me my change, plus the little receipt with the all-important order number on it. Really just a formality of course, because there are only three customers in the place, and one is already eating. But the receipt pops up out of the cash register, and by golly, somebody’s got to hold on to it.

Now I need to find a place to put my body in this rather small space while I wait for my food. I’m getting it to go, and I don’t want to occupy one of the few tables while I wait even though I wouldn’t be putting anybody out at the moment. (I’m very conscientious that way). But before I can even turn away from the counter to look for a place to be, I overhear the two other customer behind me engaged in conversation. They are talking about candy.

Candy? Why the hell are they talking about candy? And rather passionately at that?

When I turn around I half expect to see one of them eating candy. How else would the subject have come up? But no, neither of them is eating any candy. And the man at the table isn’t even eating a dessert because this place doesn’t have dessert. He is just sitting there eating his regular ol’ Mexican food. Bizarre.

I find a wooden stool to sit on and tune them out. But suddenly the conversation turns to sour candy. Sour candy? Really? Now they have my attention. I love sour candy. In fact, I don’t think the candy has been invented that is too sour for me. I can eat lemons the way most people eat oranges. I used to really freak out my septuagenarian Japanese-American former land lady when I would eat lemons in her presence. I can still hear her. She’d say the exact same thing every time:

Ooooohhh, noooooo! Why you do that? I don’t understand how you do that!

Sour candy, indeed. Now this is a conversation I can participate in. (Aren’t you glad I didn’t say “sink my teeth into”?). I contemplate jumping in; afterall, I am a master in this field. I’d be doing them a favor. But, no. I’m too tired to care enough. I make a conscious decision to keep my mouth shut. Rather a shame to keep my level of sour candy expertise hidden under a bushel, but I’m just plain worn out.

After a moment, it becomes apparent that the conversation was something the woman initiated and the man was merely being polite. This woman is very chatty, very peppy, and most damningly, very perky. A lot of people find that to be an irritating quality, especially in a stranger, but I don’t mind. In fact, I sometimes like chatty people. The more someone else is talking, the less I have to, which is cool by me. I’m not much for talking unless the topic is something I’m really interested in.

The conversation winds down, and the man goes back to eating in peace. I notice he’s keeping his eyes straight down on his plate with a vengeance. He’s had his fill of polite conversation, and does not want do anything that will risk inviting any more. Watching this unfold kind of makes me laugh inside, but I try not to smile outwardly. I’ve found this stool to sit on while I wait, and I’m in veg mode. Zoning out straight ahead into space puts my line of sight directly between the man and the young woman. Perfect: someplace to look without looking at anyone.

The woman is easily in my peripheral vision. I can see she’s looking right at me. I keep staring off into space, pretending not to notice. She’s relentless, won’t stop staring at me. Her conversation with the man has ended with no chance of revival, and she’s got a bull’s eye on the one who’s got “next” - me. I make a point to avoid eye contact at all cost because I know the minute I do, that opens the floodgates. Usually, I wouldn’t mind chatting with a stranger. Usually, I’d be happy to let this person start a conversation if they wanted to. What do I care? My food will be ready in a minute or two, and then I’m gone. But not tonight. Tonight, I’m just too tired, too maxed-out. I just don’t have anything left to give right now, not even passive listening.

But the woman doesn’t care. She is single-minded in her mission, and her eyes never leave me for a second. And now she’s upping the ante for my attention by using exaggerated motions to repeatedly run her fingers through the back of her hair, which is reddish-blonde and reaches just to the base of her neck. My god. This woman wants to talk to someone so badly. The drama continues until I break. My compassion overcomes my fatigue, and I decide to throw this poor woman a bone and allow eye contact. I turn my head a tiny fraction to the left and let my eyes meet hers. Still running her fingers through her hair, she pounces instantly.

“I’m just not used to my hair being so short”, she tells me.

What? She wants to talk about hair? Hair? Well you just hit the jackpot sweetie, because I have a thing or two to say on that subject right about now!

Now it was my turn to pounce. “Well”, I begin in a voice clearly indicating my less than cheery mood, “at least your hair is short by choice. My hair’s this short because of a salon disaster about a month and a half ago. My stylist decided she wanted to ‘try something new with my hair’”.

“Fried it?” asked the woman.

“Destroyed it”, I continued, my voice conveying the increasing level of anger and disgust welling up within me as I recounted my plight. “It was falling out in clumps. I couldn’t even comb it because every time I did, more would fall out. I got to spend my birthday a few days later back at the salon trying to do damage control. It didn’t work, so I just had to have it all cut off. And what little I do have is strategically styled to cover up two little bald spots where hair used to be.”

“Well”, she said with a smile, “I think it looks cute anyway”.

Amazing but true! The little bit of hair I did have was having a “good” day, actually. First time since it was all chopped off.

“Well, thanks”, I said, mustering a tiny smile for her benefit.

Then, with her same peppy, perky tone and smiling face she said, “My hair’s so short because I got cancer and it’s just now starting to grow back”.

*******************

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Responses to “Encounters with Strangers (#1): Sour Candy”

  1. on 18 May 2007 at 6:22 am 1. JP Stormcrow said …

    And then you beat the crap out of her for making you feel badly …

    I mean, since she had like cancer and all, you probably could have taken her.

  2. on 18 May 2007 at 8:14 am 2. christian h. said …

    JP! The incivility! Skay, thanks for sharing that story. Should you ever publish memoirs, count me among the first readers.

    I worked in the breast cancer screening and treatment department of a hospital for a year (as replacement for military service, which I refused), and I was always so amazed by the strength of those that had the disease. One might think if you have cancer, you don’t have any energy to worry about others, or feel with their problems, trivial in comparison - yet somehow my experience is the opposite. I was reminded of that recently by Elisabeth’s Edwards story, and again by the one you tell.

  3. on 18 May 2007 at 9:10 am 3. Sven DiMilo said …

    My late mother-in-law was well known to start up conversations in grocery-store lines (or whatever) that started with her hysterectomy and went downhill from there. Heart of gold, but man.

  4. on 18 May 2007 at 10:29 am 4. JP Stormcrow said …

    JP! The incivility!

    You’re right. To make up for it, here is a not-really-the-same-kind-of-thing-at-all encounter with a stranger.

    In the distant past, I came to Pittsburgh on a business trip with some colleagues. We imbibed immoderately on the last night of the trip, so when I went the next morning to purchase a bus ticket to visit my folks for the weekend, I was a barely functioning quasi-humanoid. The line was long and slow, when I reached the front, the impatient clerk barked: “Running away, or on a trip?” “Jeez” I thought, “Do I look that bad?” - but I rallied, “On a trip.” Slowly, the gears turned, just as I was to receive my ticket I corrected myself - “Sorry, I meant one way.” “Well that doesn’t help me one bit, sir.” was the ungrateful, but not unwarranted reply, - and she did deign to write up a new ticket.

    That’s it - other than that if you were to think a Greyhound bus is a good place to sleep off a hangover, you’d be wrong.

  5. on 18 May 2007 at 10:42 am 5. The Constructivist said …

    Wow, not only a great piece on its own but in the back of my mind was a perhaps future installment from the pre-launch days of WAAGNFNP. So I gotta ask, Oaktown Girl, was what she said basically a conversation stopper or did you find out if it was in remission, how serious is was/is, and most importantly, whether her peppyperkymotormouthiness was a sign of trauma, denial, or a sophisticated attempt to talk herself into health (a game with rules only she understands)?

  6. on 18 May 2007 at 10:54 am 6. Colonel KL said …

    Oaktown that was very descriptive and well said. I can ’see’ the encounter. I feel sympathy for the woman as I am sure you did. I know you have wonderful empathy and sympathetic reactions, BUT you have to have down time. Time away from needy people to care for your own needs. Recharge the batteries and pound out a few dents in the hull. Hard as hell to get.
    Since I’ve so much of my life being what I naturally am: Alpha; adventurous; athletic; adaptable; nurturing; charismatic, I’ve had to learn that ME time has to be up there on the priority list. That means that someone whom I never met before gets to hear “I feel for you, honey, but it’s not my problem. Excuse me, I’m going away now.”
    I tend to be a loner by choice, when I can be. Damned hard these days to get by yourself. Try going to a park ‘off hours’ and sheesh, no sooner settled down on a bench or a boulder when along comes P E O P L E. Around Vero Beach it’s usually either QTips or Soccer Moms.
    QTips are elders with white hair. Florida phrase usually meant to be derisive.
    For some annoying reason, the QTips tend to stare. Stare……..stare………..stare…….and then make a comment to the other QTips (usually found in pairs or threesomes) while still staring!
    Soccer Moms around here tend to be #1. Thin to the point of anorexia (think Mrs. Beckham) #2. Dressed in some type of athletic attire. #3. Driving a humongous SUV. #4. Always accompanied by other SM’s and/or hordes of spawn.
    SM’s here seem to on constant ‘pervert alert’. Unless you know the secret handshake, or whatever you get looked over in a manner that would peel paint and then studiously ignored.
    HOWEVER! They don’t go away. They congenitally do not understand the concept of ‘private or alone time’. So they congregate where they can still watch the redhead with the waist length hair who is NOT bone thin attempt to get some down time.
    Yes, Oaktown what you wrote really got me thinking. Dangerous thing! >

  7. on 18 May 2007 at 10:56 am 7. Colonel KL said …

    P.S. Heading out to a park now.

  8. on 18 May 2007 at 10:59 am 8. spyder said …

    Strange people mash-up… because they were as strange as the man in the iron maiden????

    People are strange, when you’re a stranger
    Faces look ugly when you’re alone
    Women seem wicked, when you’re unwanted
    Streets are uneven, when you are down

    Leaders take us far away from ecology
    With mythology and astrology
    Has got some words to say
    About the way we live today
    Why can’t we learn to love each other
    It’s time to turn a new face
    To the whole world wide human race

    And I really don’t mind
    Sleeping on the floor
    But I couldn’t sleep after what I saw
    I wrote this letter to tell you
    The way I feel

    Stop the money chase
    Lay back, relax
    Get back on the human track
    Stop racing toward oblivion
    Oh, such a sad, sad state we’re in
    And that’s a thing

    Night and day I scan horizon sea and sky
    My spirit wanders endlessly
    Until the day will dawn and friends from home discover why
    Hear me calling rescue me
    Set me free, set me free
    Lost in this place and leave no trace

    One hundred years have gone and men again they come that way
    To find the answer to the mistery
    They found his body lying where if fell that day
    Preserved in time for all to see
    No brave new world no brave new world
    Lost in this place to leave no trace

    Stranger in a strange land
    Land of ice and snow
    Trapped inside this prison
    Lost and far from home

    Do you recognize the bells of truth
    When you hear them ring
    Won’t you stop and listen
    To the children sing
    Won’t you come on and sing it children

    When you’re strange- faces come out of the rain (rain, rain)
    When you’re strange- no one remembers your name
    When you’re strange, when you’re strange, when you’re stray-ange

    Stranger
    A stranger in a strange land
    He look at me like I
    Was the one who should run
    I watched as he watched us get back on the bus
    I watched the way it was
    The way it was when he was with us

    He’s a stranger in a strange land
    Just a stranger in a strange land

    All alone I stand, I stand now just a stranger
    In a strange land, just a stranger, in a strange, strange land
    J-j-j-j-just a stranger, yeah
    I’m a stranger, in a strange, strange land
    Hey, come with me to the beat, I’m a stranger
    I’m a stranger (I’m a stranger) in a strange land
    (In a strange, strange land) Just a stranger

  9. on 18 May 2007 at 11:21 am 9. Seattle said …

    LOL Anonymity in the city, the trials and tribulations thereof. There you were, just wanting to be the anonymous “other” and she used every body language technique in the book to engage you anyway. Of course, with cancer, you’re keeping your fingers crossed every day after the chemo is over that all the cells were caught and that’s got to change some people’s attitudes about the day to day interactions they do or do not chose to have. My sister’s hair drove her nuts after the first round of chemo. It came back in curly and she kept referring to it as “old woman’s perm” hair. This time it looks like it may be reversing back to straight again. Hopefully we won’t have to go for round 3 in the cancer hair regrowth game.

  10. on 18 May 2007 at 12:49 pm 10. Oaktown Girl said …

    In answer to your questions, TC – I believe the woman was just one of those naturally happy, chatty-with-strangers kind of person. As to what happened next – well, there was a silence that seemed interminable as I debated what to say in response. The man at the table eating actually looked up to see what was going to happen next after Ms. Perky dropped her bomb, which I’m sure she did not intend as a bomb dropping event. It just happened to have that effect after my “poor, poor me” rant.

    So there was this rather long silence and I finally just said, “Well, OK, fine. Your’s trumps mine.” Then I smiled for real, and so did the man at the table. Just at that moment, my food arrived, so I was able to grab it and wave good bye as I walked out. TV sit-com quality timing, that was. The woman clearly was in good shape, (genuinely in good spirits, not denial-style loopy), so there was no need for me to try to redeem myself by staying and inquiring about her condition and how she was doing. I do remember being grateful that only one person (the man eating) overheard that entire interaction. Otherwise, I would have been truly embarrassed.

    TC – I’m so glad you like this piece. I honestly had no idea if it was going to seem poignant or of any interest at all to anyone else. I asked Christian and JP to read it and gave them a total green light to nix it without fear of hurting my feelings.

    As soon as I got home after this happened, I wrote it down in draft form so I would not forget the details in the event I needed to write a blog post in the future (if we decided to do this blog and we needed content, which we do, so here it is). I hope folks will take advantage of the invitation to contribute to our new “Encounters with Strangers” series. I know there are some good stories out there.

  11. on 18 May 2007 at 1:14 pm 11. Oaktown Girl said …

    By the way, JP…

    And then you beat the crap out of her for making you feel badly …
    I mean, since she had like cancer and all, you probably could have taken her.

    that’s the hardest I’ve laughed in a long time. Except now you’ve ruined our potential Friday Night/Weekend Open Thread topic: “Tell your story of what you think happened next”, because you’ve already come up with the best one! I mean, how do you top that?

  12. on 18 May 2007 at 2:33 pm 12. James Killus said …

    Buffy: My hat has a cow.
    Riley: I hear you. Got big stories to tell you, too. We get half a sec, we can compare and contrast.
    Buffy: Did you die?
    Riley: No.
    Buffy: I’m gonna win…

  13. on 18 May 2007 at 4:45 pm 13. Kiera PSI said …

    Okay, still in the same vein (pun fully intended, James) as Oaktown Girl’s story…but not in the way you’d think.

    I was at the local Relay for Life a few weeks ago, and as I was wearing a purple survivors’ tee shirt, people would specifically come up to me and start conversations. Because I have a problem with speaking to strangers (don’t laugh Oaktown Girl, Colonel KL) I’d invariably respond with my “Tale of 5 Women”, which I’ll share with all of you.

    There were five women, Catherine, Judy, Benita, Karen and Kiera, all of whom received were visited by the “Big C” (cancer). Catherine was from an older generation that felt uncomfortable having a strange person looking, let alone touching “here” or “there”, so never had a PAP smear or mammography. By the time she was diagnosed, her cervical cancer had spread to her uterus, liver and kidneys and there was nothing that could be done. Judy had regular PAPs, but declared that a mammography “hurt too much”. She was diagnosed with cancer that began in her breasts after stepping down off a curb and having her shin bone break because it was riddled with cancer. Again, there was nothing that could be done. Benita had both tests up until her husband’s untimely death. She couldn’t afford health insurance or routine doctor visits, and was too proud to apply for state help. Her breast cancer was diagnosed after she began having terrible pain all over her body. The cancer had already spread into her spinal cord and, you guessed it, there was nothing that could be done. She did try to fight it, not to beat it because she knew that barring divine intervention, that wasn’t going to happen, but simply to live long enough for her son to turn eighteen and to graduate from high school. She did that, so I guess you could say she won…but that’s a pretty bitter victory in my point of view. Karen had ovary problems in her late teens and had a hysterectomy. Somehow she gained the impression that she didn’t need to have PAP smears. She found out she was wrong when doctors operated to remove what they thought was a cyst in her abdomen, only to find her entire abdominal cavity absolutely riddled with cancer. They gave her a few days, she lived a month, so I guess she beat the odds too, but not well enough. But this is an event about hope, about survival, so let me tell you Kiera’s story. As Catherine’s daughter, Kiera knew the importance of screening tests. She wasn’t just faithful to it, she was downright fanatical. When facing pre-surgical testing for elective surgery just a few months after her annual PAP smear, her surgeon gave her the option of having another PAP or just using the results of the last one. She opted to have the PAP, and it was a good thing. It came back positive. She immediately saw her OB-GYN, who took a look at it, and decided it was still new and small enough to be treated with silver nitrate, destroying the minute amount of cancerous cells and those immediately around them. He didn’t even recommend chemo or radiation therapy. He saw her three months later and found just a few more affected cells, and destroyed them as well. This has been the end of it, and she’s been cancer-free for over three years.

    This is a tale of five women, only one of whom survived to tell the tale. PLEASE, if you do nothing else, get the recommended testing for your age and gender. Only one out of the five people I personally knew survived the diagnosis. Get tested, make it two out of six. Tell your friends and family, insist that they get tested and make it three out of seven, four out of eight, and so on. I want to be able to say that ninety-six out of a hundred people that I know who were unfortunate enough to contract this scourge survived it. About this, be fanatical.

  14. on 18 May 2007 at 6:55 pm 14. spyder said …

    I couldn’t resist:

    Strangers in the night exchanging glances
    Wond’ring in the night what were the chances
    We’d be sharing love before the night was through

    Something in your eyes was so inviting
    Something in you smile was so exciting
    Something in my heart told me I must have you

    Strangers in the night
    Two lonely people, we were strangers in the night
    Up to the moment when we said our first hello little did we know
    Love was just a glance away, a warm embracing dance away

    and

    Ever since that night we’ve been together
    Lovers at first sight, in love forever
    It turned out so right for strangers in the night

    [instrumental-first three lines of chorus]
    Love was just a glance away, a warm embracing dance away

    Ever since that night we’ve been together
    Lovers at first sight, in love forever
    It turned out so right for strangers in the night

  15. on 18 May 2007 at 7:09 pm 15. Colonel KL said …

    One for The Spyd:
    Sunset is an angel weeping
    Holding out a bloody sword
    No matter how I squint I cannot
    Make out what it’s pointing toward
    Sometimes you feel like you live too long
    Days drip slowly on the page
    You catch yourself
    Pacing the cage

    I’ve proven who I am so many times
    The magnetic strip’s worn thin
    And each time I was someone else
    And every one was taken in
    Powers chatter in high places
    Stir up eddies in the dust of rage
    Set me to pacing the cage

    I never knew what you all wanted
    So I gave you everything
    All that I could pillage
    All the spells that I could sing
    It’s as if the thing were written
    In the constitution of the age
    Sooner or later you’ll wind up
    Pacing the cage

    Sometimes the best map will not guide you
    You can’t see what’s round the bend
    Sometimes the road leads through dark places
    Sometimes the darkness is your friend
    Today these eyes scan bleached-out land
    For the coming of the outbound stage
    Pacing the cage
    Pacing the cage

  16. on 18 May 2007 at 7:45 pm 16. Oaktown Girl said …

    I just got home from work, and now I have to turn right around and go back out again. Thanks for the comments everybody, and I look forward to reading them when I get back home. (Today at work I could only scan through them quickly. It was a total zoo).

  17. on 19 May 2007 at 8:21 am 17. peter ramus said …

    Oaktown Girl, refering you back to your qualms about posting what you write, you don’t need to have any. I like the way your story answers the puzzle of the lively enthusiastic talk about candy it opens with, giving a good motive for the woman’s passion for words on any subject, even sour candies, as her conversation inevitably draws you, the inadvertant participant, back to the fact of the cancer those words are trying to constrain. In all justice, you must continue to post regularly, MOJ.

  18. on 22 May 2007 at 11:10 am 18. The Constructivist said …

    Colonel, sir, have I got a story for you–you think soccer moms are tough? watch out for yochien moms!

    christian will no doubt appreciate my Snow Crash reference–I am thinking a lot about the sequel due soonest, really I am!

    but if my delays get Oaktown Girl to post more, I say, “hail, procrastination!”

  19. on 22 May 2007 at 11:14 am 19. Colonel KL said …

    > Oaktown baiting are we? Now THAT just might get me going here. I can’t wait for the story, Constructivist. :) Don’t get me wrong, sports fans, I have an 18 year old. In h’word shelters three years ago I babysat and read to and rocked to sleep many a brat (oops) small person. Enjoyed it and made life and time pass better for us all, I might say (patting self on the back here)

  20. on 22 May 2007 at 11:53 am 20. christian h. said …

    hail, procrastination

    Now we have to deal with procrastinationalists, too? Jeez.

  21. on 22 May 2007 at 2:35 pm 21. Colonel KL said …

    Webster Dictionary, 1913
    Procrastination (Page: 1142)
    Pro*cras`ti*na”tion (?), n. [L. procrastinatio: cf. F. procrastination.] The act or habit of procrastinating, or putting off to a future time; delay; dilatoriness.
    Procrastination is the thief of time. Young
    I propose and prefer dilatoriness and its derivative…dilatorianists.

  22. on 22 May 2007 at 5:12 pm 22. Oaktown Girl said …

    Colonel KL -
    You’d have to check with one of our more superior wordsmiths, but perhaps the word you are looking for is “dilatorianista”, as in “TC is a…”

  23. on 22 May 2007 at 5:47 pm 23. Colonel KL said …

    Naaaah. When I speak manglish, I speak manglish. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!