The Time I Definitely Did Not Get Picked Up in the Checkout Line

Last night I had a strange sort of experience that first made me feel embarrassed, then kind of sad, then grateful. This is how it went.

I zipped out to the store by myself after dinner, before bedtime, just for a few things I hadn't gotten earlier in the week--a few bags of frozen fruit, some canned goods, pickles, cabbage, flour... Basically I mostly got the preserved food that I'm too lazy to have put up for myself last summer. (Is it laziness? Or is it gluttony? Because I don't recall ever having any abundance of food that needed preserving.) It wasn't supposed to be a lot of food, but for a family of six, pretty much any grocery trip ends with a lot of food. Anyway, there was only one checkout open, and I was in a hurry to get home and put the girls to bed, so I just zipped right into line. There was a man who fell into line behind me and we were standing there (it was a long line) for probably a full minute or more, when I heard him say, "You just barely beat me." I turned around and saw he was a man probably about my age, blonde hair, blue eyes, smiling at me, ...pretty smarmy seeming (and absolutely not a man who could harvest and cook me a delicious dinner with nothing but sticks and skill, unlike the hunk I married.) I responded with a delicate, "Huh??" He repeated himself, and I could plainly see his expression change from cool to regretful. It only got worse as I started apologizing and gesticulating and speaking in a volume that would never be considered an "inside voice." He only had a couple of pillows in his cart, and I begged him to please go ahead of me since he had so little and I had OMG SO MUCH FOOD, and his expression just slid further and further into outright disgust and he said, "It's ok, I'm good." I turned around and prayed for the line to move along so I could get the heck out of there.

Then another cashier came up and offered me to come to her freshly opened lane. Of course, I turned around and begged Mr. Pillows to go over there, but with the same flat expression he said, "ladies first," and I hauled my cart over to the next checkout. Which, of course, was the wrong checkout. The cashier waved from one over and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm over heeeere!" So I bumped and heaved my cart out of the wrong checkout and into the right checkout, and the cashier started asking me polite questions that she really didn't want actual answers to, but of course, I answered her cheerfully in my non-inside voice, apologized some more, waved my arms, was embarrassingly over-friendly... sigh. All the usual.

Then I left. And I walked out wondering why I can't control my volume, why I can't be one of those quiet people, one of those slick, beautiful women with a soft, sultry voice and lovely smile? I don't have any desire to be picked up by creepy men in the grocery store checkout line, but neither do I desire to turn around and witness firsthand how they feel they've made a mistake, when they see that I'm not the lovely lady they were expecting, that I'm just a weird, loud, frumpy old hag with wrinkles and acne and way too many apologies. Nobody likes rejection, even if it's rejection from something in which they are totally and utterly uninterested. Rejection always stings a little.

Back at my Mom Van with the flowers painted on the sides, I loaded my groceries in the trunk, reviewing what I'd bought--canned tomatoes, pickles and cabbage for sour cabbage soup; frozen peaches for peaches and cream for the girls and their friend Helen after ballet on Wednesday; a bottle of Mrs. Meyers spray because the bottle I'd been reusing with vinegar for awhile broke and Fresh Thyme was out of their glass spray bottles; flour because I've got a whole lot of bread to bake this week. As I drove home I thought about all those things I'd bought and about the way I choose to live. It's a simple, homemade way of life that I really love. My idiosyncrasies that are over the top and embarrassing are just who I am and I shouldn't want to be quieter only because other people are quieter. If I have a desire to change who I am, it should be because I'm always feeling on the edge of getting kicked out of libraries and churches for being too loud and animated, not just because I want to be more like other people. And so what if nobody likes me, right? I've got Martin and my daughters for now, and if they someday decide to move on and away from me and never look back, I love cats and I could happily fill my whole house with cats, who cannot comment on my habits and traits. They might look at me with disgust, but they are cats!

Today I've been baking my bread and making my cabbage soup and thinking about beautiful women. Perfect, barbie doll women, with ideal traits, habits, and features that are found so attractive by so many. Mousy, sweet women who are so nice that people envy them for their kindness and compassion. Bold, successful women who know what they want out of life and go for it, and even if they don't succeed right away, they keep at it. Gentle, motherly women, who are raising up a future generation to make the world a better place. Loud, alpha-females who take every situation by storm. Women who are stepping out of their comfort zones and treading a new path in life, moving forward with as much confidence as they can muster. Empty nesters who are past the chaos and endless work of children and are watching their children go off without them. Old World grandmothers in their kitchens making bread and cabbage soup--women who would definitely not be picked up by men in the grocery store checkout line, but who are so, so very beautiful.

So I guess I should really thank Mr. Pillows if I ever see him again, for embarrassing me into seeing things more clearly, and recognizing that every "mother's apron" covered in a floral dress, every forehead wrinkle, every dark circle, every silver thread of hair, every coffee stain on the blouse of someone who uses her arms too much when she talks--- these little bits of life are really what make the women of this world so exceptionally attractive.


AND A BONUS RECIPE!

Wintertime Sour Cabbage Soup

One large sweet onion
1 Tbsp (or more) garlic 
As much butter as you love 
1 head cabbage 
1 can diced tomatoes
1 box or handful mushrooms 
half water, half chicken broth 
1/2 of the pickle juice from a jar of pickles
dill 
oregano
salt 
pepper 

In a large soup pot, melt butter. Cut up onion and sauté with garlic until transparent. Core and cut up cabbage, add to pot. Drain can of tomatoes and add.

Cover ingredients with water, then add that same amount of chicken broth.

Slice or dice mushrooms, add to pot. Give many good shakes of dried oregano, dill, as well as salt and pepper to taste. Pour in the pickle juice.

Let boil/simmer for 30 minutes to an hour. Serve hot and enjoy!