My name is Annjanette. I'm 27 years old, a college graduate, have a decent job, live on my own, and have friends who like me. But as my Dad often said to me when I was younger (and even just a few weeks ago), "Annjanette, sometimes you're not the sharpest tool in the shed." In all self-honesty, I know he's right - at least sometimes, as he says.
Case in point: I had to run to the supermarket last night when I came home from work and found my refrigerator empty of anything remotely edible or drinkable. I looked into the white expanse of the fridge and saw only condiments on the door shelf, some catfood for Delia, a cut lime wedge, and half an onion.
"Fuck," I said aloud to myself and knew that I'd either have to succumb to fast food or make a run to the local grocery.
I quickly ran upstairs and got out of my office attire and threw on a few items of clothing I found laying on my bedroom floor. And out the door I went, getting into my car to drive the quarter mile to Foodsavers.
It was early evening and the temperature in the desert here was still stifling, even in the early dusk. As I exited my car, I found an abandoned cart in the parking lot and hustled into the air-conditioned confines of Foodsavers. I wheeled the cart through the produce section, choosing a fresh head of lettuce and a nice, ripe tomato for a refreshing salad (gotta watch my weight!), then a quick cart-push to the cereal aisle.
I slowed my pace here to peruse the multitude of boxed offerings. Way up on the top shelf, I saw a cereal that I hadn't had a spoonful of since I was a young girl. "Sweet Sugar Snaps" in a bright orange box, with a picture of a mountain of snow-white sugar under the logo, was my target. I reached an arm up to get a box but I was about six inches shy of my objective. I looked up and down the aisle. No one was there. I took a deep breath and jumped while reaching but I still couldn't get the damn box of Sweet Sugar Snaps. Christ, how tall do they make these shelves?, I wondered.
I tried jumping again and missed again. It sucks being only 5'3" sometimes. But once I make my mind up on something, I never let it go. So I looked up and down the aisle again and saw no one was there to see me. I pushed a few things away on the bottom shelf and put my right foot onto the bottom shelf, with my left leg hanging behind me and reached an arm up to grab my Sweet Sugar Snaps prize. Got it! I cried to myself as my hand made contact with the bright box of cereal. With my arm extended, cereal safely in hand, I felt the left of my soft moccasin slippers come off my free foot and fall softly to the linoleum floor beneath me. I climbed back down the shelf and began looking for my lost left moccasin. When I turned to my left, I saw an elderly man with the soft brown moccasin in his hand.
"I think this is yours, young lady," he said.
"Yes, it is," I said, flushing from embarrassment, and hopping on one right shod foot while the left bare one dangled a foot above the cold linoleum.
The old man got down on one knee and held my moccasin out for me. I carefully dipped my toes into the comfortable moc and then jiggled my heel into the opening so that I was not shoeless anymore.
"You have pretty feet, Miss," the old man said, never once taking his eyes off my moccasin. He held my re-moccasin-ed foot in his hand for perhaps a moment too long and I had to wiggle it away from his grasp.
"Thank you for your kindness," I said as I threw the cereal into my basket and began a hasty exit from him.
"It was my pleasure, Miss," he said, and when I turned back to smile at him with another thank you gesture, he winked at me with a lecher's grin on his skeletal face.
