Lookatmelookatme 2: The saga continues.

Once upon a time I was choring away at the costume warehouse, wrapping up a few things while waiting for my beloved friend Patti to arrive so we could run off to do some fun thing or other. I bent over to pick up a fallen costume and raised up into a waterfall fixture and clocked my forehead with some force. It hurt like the devil and there was a scrape with just a little blood. Not nearly enough to prompt the outpouring of sympathy I felt I deserved. So I sat on the floor a little longer than I needed to clear my head, hoping Patti would come in while I was sitting there and realize the extent of my suffering. Patti is a champion oh-you-poor-thinger and it is wonderful to get that blast of warm sympathy and then bravely say "Oh… it's nothing. What movie are we seeing?" She was late and I got bored and washed my forehead, but I told her when she arrived how I had posed for her on the floor and she missed it. Her laughter is as uplifting as her compassion. Good trade.

This is just a glimpse into the workings of my inner mind to suggest to you, dear readers, how much I have enjoyed the attention I have received since the robbery. I am functioning just fine, though I admit it is on my mind almost constantly. I expect my boss thought I had an unnatural fear of corporate visits when I jerked as he told us to expect "Rob". Several folks have suggested that I might fall apart later. So far I have chewed a hole in my lip during the night and burst out crying at Alberta's 6th grade picture even before I read the caption. But just look at how dear that picture is. I might have done that anyway. Further, I have been congratulated for and encouraged to keep writing about it, making me feel all brave and such for courageously revealing my trembling guts.

Truthiness? The second I saw the gun (and I now can remember it in his hand, but only when he is approaching the door) my inner wordsmith was whispering "oh… you can get some mileage out of this." and I was already composing before the police got there. The good parts of the saga are I didn't get hurt, it didn't last long, he didn't get much, he will get caught and I have a great story to tell. And I loooove having a story to tell. What's a little peace of mind compared to that? Good trade.

I still can't see the gun.

Even though I just watched the surveillance tape and could clearly see it in his left hand, I cannot picture the man standing in front of me with a gun pointed my direction. I told the police officers he had a sock on his hand with something hard in it. Or his hand was in his pocket. I told them I definitely did not see a gun. Watching the video it is clear that is impossible. Somehow my mind has photoshopped that selected area with the "grainy" filter. I simply cannot call up the image.

My turn. I knew it was coming. I have been too lucky. The night started out all wrong. When I got to work I realized I had forgotten my cell phone. It plays a key role in my escape plan and getting all flummoxed over that made me park in the wrong place. On third shift I always leave my car at one of the pumps, hoping a would be robber might think I have a customer. However, I was so distracted I parked in my second shift spot and was already counting in when I noticed. Oh well.

It was a dark and stormy night. Okay. It was drizzly and there weren't many customers. There was plenty of time to notice the guy who came in a little after one. He bought a Pepsi with a debit card and wouldn't speak to or look at me. However, he was looking hard around behind the counter and directly at the empty open till on the other cash register and at the safe. I knew right then I was going to be robbed. I made a copy of the receipt and wrote everything I could remember about him on the back. That way the police would be able to see him on the film easily, I figured, because the receipt would show the exact time.

Right after the incident, I was ridiculously grateful that he let me finish mopping and didn't track up the floor. I don't know if it was the same guy, and the clothes were different so it is hard to tell about the build, but he was the same height. His face was all covered up. Reviewing the tape I realized why I kept saying to the police officers that he had socks on his hands and face. (I thought he had a sweat sock over his mouth.) The way he was done up he looked like a sock monkey. Since my mind was refusing to acknowledge his weapon, it substituted an available theme.

He didn't get much and he was rather disappointed.

"Is that all? Are you sure???"

"Do you want the rolled change?"

"No. I just want more money."

At this point I tried to say "That's all there is.", but I think it came out as "Meow."

He ran. I dialled 911. The cops were there in about 2 minutes.

When other people get robbed, you fantasize about how you would react. I had told my old boss at Shell that if I ever got robbed at gunpoint, he could consider that my immediate notice. I thought I would come unglued and have to at least go directly home. Preferably with some good friend whose company I would sorely crave for solace driving poor hysterical me. But when our new manager got there, I finished up the chores while she went about figuring out how much was taken. We reopened and I stayed until the end of my shift. There was no one I wanted to call. Maybe if it hadn't been such an unseemly hour. Besides I didn't have my cell phone and I don't know anyone's number any more. When I got home I was nonetheless happy to find I had left the bedroom light on and the silhouette of Pete the Cat was obvious in the upstairs window, and very gratified that I have a weird cat who likes to meet me at the front door. When she spoke I knew that she understood everything.

"Meow."

You said it, Pete.

3rd Shift Lessons in Stereotype- O'Really?

In July, I will financially be able to quit the Shell station where I work part time because that silly thing I have been paying off will be gone. I don't know if I will be able to part with it, though. Not only do I love our weird little family, but the adventures and the opportunities for learning just never quit.

For instance, tonight I learned that in certain circles, one must be very careful in how one expresses a desire for certain vegetables. Specifically green beans. It may be safest to indicate "non pharmaceutical". Without the School of Third Shift Convenience Mart Fringe Learning Program I could have wound up with a plate full of Percoset someday.

Also, there was a surprise seminar in Stereotype Confirmation and Retention. My longtime friend Russell is the only person I have known to be brave enough to say "What we have to face is, they become stereotypes because they are so often true." Lesson 54.

Our little gas station in on the edge of Horsefarmland here in Lexington. Everyone from owners to grooms stop by. I had been told that the Irish were a big part of Kentucky's horse industry, and this idea is supported by the number of brogues I hear at the counter. I don't think there's one of these fellows that I have seen going to or coming from work, all lilting politeness and charm, that I have not also seen piss drunk. Even the genteel bespectacled Mr. R, who wears shirts that have to cost a hundred bucks each. Sweet Mr. R expressed in a besotted lament once, how deeply sorry (tears in his eyes) he was that I had missed a certain race because "… sheeshe sush a laaarvelly haaaaarse."

Tonight's guest instructor was a man of about my age that I know only as Pat. A yellow cab surprised me when it swung into the parking lot in a hurry and pulled to the door instead of the pumps. No one came in. I could see the driver was turned and talking to the passenger in the back seat. I have seen Pat in a number of taxi back seats, but not with a driver waving his arms around like that. When the cabby finally came in he turned out to be introducing the lesson as an expert stereotype himself… a taxi driver named Boris who spoke with a slovak accent. It seemed that Pat was so very inebriated that he not only could not produce any carfare, but could not even manage to tell Boris where he lives. Boris wanted to use the shelter of our Shell to call the police, leaving Pat outside in the cold cold cab. Which didn't last.

Weaving and staggering in precisely the exaggerated way that mimes indicate drunkenness, Pat opened the door by leaning against it until he fell in. Gratefully he did not fall all the way down. I could not understand anything he was saying between his brogue and the thickness of his tongue. Assuming he wanted the men's room, I told him it was in the back corner of the store but he was confused that I had brought it up. "It always is, isn't it?" He stumbled off that direction, but went into the beer cave instead of the toilet. He then managed to lumber over to the counter with a 24 pack of Keystone. Boris started to reinterview him about his ability to pay for the cab and his place of residence. Pat talked to me instead of Boris. I didn't get a lot of it, but I repeated what I thought I heard.

"There isn't any money any more?"

"Nooo. Not anymore. Not any money any more."

"That's not good news."

"Nooo. S'not goodues s'tall."

In spite of this confession, he still indicated that he wanted me to find some way for him to take the beer home. The police were not coming fast enough for Boris, so he fled outside to repeat his S.O.S., leaving me with Tullaghmore Dew's legacy.

"I can't sell it to you Pat."

Sadly. "Why not?"

"Because you're already drunk."

All charm. "Aaaaah. And I luuuv ya furrreva. A'right den."

The next few minutes were a confused mess of Boris not being able to decide if he should get away from Pat or be by his side constantly and Pat getting bored and going outside to wait and then coming in to demand that they leave for home… but not being able to say where that was… and the door just opening and shutting and them going in and out a lot and the snow blowing in and me getting really cold.

I don't know what Boris told the cops but two cars showed up at once and neither of them contained the usual Officer Friendlies who stop in. The biggest policeman I ever saw emerged from the car in front. Pat and Boris saw him at the same time. Strangely, Boris looked terrified and Pat just looked very very sad. He turned his usually twinkly eyes on me, beseeching.

"Hash the worrrrld gone mad? Z'ha worrrl hash gone ashuloosely mad."

But when Police Mountain speaks, Irishmen sober.

"Hey Buddy, where do you live?"

"I gush wan go home dash my cab der."

"TELL THE MAN WHERE YOU LIVE SO HE CAN TAKE YOU HOME."

And the address came tumbling out. The other more regular sized policeman found Pat's wallet and ID in the back of the cab. Police Mountain seemed more annoyed with Boris than Pat. Stereptype 3- Big Policeman with a big sympathetic heart. Then suddenly I was alone and they were just three sets of tire tracks in fresh fallen snow.

So you can see why I am reluctant to tender my notice. If I were to leave this constantly edifying source of adventure and entertainment, I would prove Stereotype 4. Overworked Middle Aged White Woman- Ashuloosely Mad.

Nice.

It happened again. My second job gas station was robbed last week. This time at gunpoint. A couple of days ago one of our regulars that I find quite pleasant asked me if I was on duty. When I said I wasn't, he said when he heard it on the news that he hoped it wasn't me and thought "...because she is such a nice lady." I thanked him for thinking of me but added "We're all nice ladies here."

The poor gal who was there got lucky because she was nice enough to be covering for another nice lady who had fallen and hurt her back. Her nice husband, who works for the company at another location, was so nice he was in the store keeping her company, because she was nervous about her first stint on third shift. He was keeping himself occupied on the side of the store where the robber approached, saw him coming and warned his wife, but because we do not have an automatic lockdown, there was no way to shut the villain out in time. Both these nice people had a gun pointed at them by a man wearing a shirt over his head. I hope he had a nice accomplice driving.

In one of the Harry Kemelman Rabbi Small mysteries, the rabbi explains to one of his fellows that according to jewish text, it is sinful to be "glad it wasn't you", because it follows that you are glad it happened to someone else. That struck me when I read it, and came back when our customer expressed his relief that I had been two hours gone when the robber came. According to Rabbi Small's explanation, it would be no more spiritual to wish it had happened to me instead. There have been times in my life when someone I loved was going through something awful and I did feel that way. As a child I hatched a number of plots to take my brother's place, were he called to Vietnam. The idea of him being afraid or hurt is still more than I can stand to dwell on. "God's will be done." Any other attitude, according to the novel Rabbi, would be assuming you know better than God what his purpose should be.

It's a good thing my few jewish ancestors converted under pressure sometime around the 1500's. I am an abject failure at God's-will-be-done-think. I wish it had been The Terminator working the overnight and that the cowardly shit who pulled a gun on that nice couple who are just trying to stay ahead of their bills and have a life was riddled with holes and lying, at the very least, in intensive care. No, he didn't hurt them. But he was prepared to hurt, or kill. It makes me feel like not such a nice lady.

The ol' grey mare he ain't what she used to be?

"Sir?"

"Sir."

"SIR!"

For the third time this week, I turn around and a shopper sees that I did not respond the first two times because I could not have imagined he/she was talking to me. It cannot be because of the length of my hair. I believed that, and maybe it was even so, when my hair was 3/4 of an inch long. It isn't any more. I thought I might like to see what it looks like long and grey, and it's in transition. Short. But it looks like girl hair. Actually this morning after I combed it I said to the woman in the mirror "Jane Hathaway, 2010".

Maybe part of it is that I have no fanny. Recently I have dropped a few pounds and I have even less fanny... and all those shoulders. I also wear men's pants to work, because they don't much make sensible work pants for women and offer them at a reasonable price. But I really think it's because I'm grey headed.

In spite of the fact that when Googling one can easily find a dozen articles about women who are letting their hair go naturally, confidently and gloriously grey, you just don't see so many of those women on the street. I'd wager that if we counted and figured, at least 95% of the grey haired people we encounter would be men. So I try to cut those shoppers some slack. At least they are saying "sir" instead of "hey!".

Third Shift Story

I have a part time job at a convenience store gas station. When things work out right, it's third shift two nights a week. Whoever has that shift is there alone for eight hours. We do not have locked doors and one of those little windows to take money through. You can come right on in. You, your neighbors and the guy that robbed our location last week.

I wasn't there. That particular night I worked second shift. Our new regular third shifter was blessed with the visitation. She wasn't hurt and the police caught the guy. Still, being there alone the past two nights has been a slightly nervous experience. It always was, of course, but the closeness of the incident spurs the imagination to take off running at very little provocation.

Take this sequence that occured in the first quarter of my shift. It would make a great opening to a movie. Opening only, because the threads never came together.

The light colored station wagon pulled up to the curb at the left entrance, with its headlights glaring in my face. There was nothing unusual in the way the ignition was shut off, or of the opening driver side door. I hardly noticed the man who got out and stood there next to his car while I waited on two customers inside. By the time I looked up, he was getting back in his car. Changed his mind, I guessed. However, though he started the engine, backed up and pulled away... he only moved the car about 15 feet, so that it was parked perpendicular to the curb and in front of the other entrance, but a rude six feet out into the lot. Once again, the man in the plaid cotton shirt stood by his vehicle, but he seemed to be staring and willing me to look at him. I did. He pointed, I thought, toward the right entrance, which we keep locked on third shift. I pointed toward the left entrance, thinking he wanted to come in and didn't know which door to use. Hey, it's third shift. People are sleepy. He came in obediently and hung back from the counter while I rang up some cigarettes for a junior smoker with a barely of age ID. The spooky way he was acting, I figured he wanted to buy condoms. I smiled as non judgmentally as I know how.

"I wanted to know how it is right to park." This slightly accented comment came out of a tan face of some far eastern gene pool. I was guessing India. Maybe Pakistan. Whatever, he was assimilated enough to be wearing cargo shorts and flip flops. Still, the question stumped me.

"Pardon?"

"I am waiting for my friend. How is it that people park? There are no lines. I do not wish to be in the way."

In the nearly two years I have worked at this place nobody has ever apologized for their parking. I was immediately suspicious and on guard.

A police car, lights flashing but no siren, zoomed by going north on Man-O-War.

"Your car is fine. People park every-which-way." (Please don't kill me.)

"Thank you. I am just waiting for my friend."

Cotton Plaidshirt went back to his car and stood outside. Waiting. A police car, lights flashing but no siren, zoomed by going south on Man-O-War. Mr. Plaidshirt did not have long to wait. Perhaps a six-pack sale and two tanks of gas later, a black or navy SUV pulled alongside his car. Osama Bin Laden was driving. Okay, no.. but a 60-ish man with a long white beard wearing a white cap that looked like an upside down cereal bowl and a white shirt with caftan style sleeves and neckline. It was almost one in the morning, my imagination was inclined to extrapolate. He pulled alongside Plaidshirt's vehicle and was talking to him through the window. He looked annoyed and was waving and gesticulating. Father-son I thought. Stupid son missing directions somehow. A white panel van pulled into the lot behind the SUV. I thought Osama and Plaidshirt were obliviously blocking this unmarked vehicle from getting to the pumps, but changed my mind when I saw the black hair and two tan faces that could have been family.

Two police cars, lights flashing but no sirens, passed each other going one north, one south on Man-o-War. Then another one going north. Maybe south made a u-turn.

Osama screeched away and the panel van zoomed after him. Cotton Plaidshirt jumped in his car and followed in haste.

Terrorists? In Kentucky? Is India mad at us? Would they make an example of a capitalist convenience store? A better example of Western greed could not be found. And 12 gas pumps could make a mighty big statement. But they were gone, and I was being silly. And the coffee ran out and things got back to normal.

More police cars. Don't get me wrong. I see a lot of them in the middle of the night and they are often in a hurry and sometimes use sirens and lights. But these seemed very close together and it occurred to me that they were looking for something or someone that had been reported close by.

I was ringing up cigarettes for a regular customer... a pretty and friendly young woman who must live or work close by. A black muscle-sedan pulled up to the door and a young god with shorn hair emerged. He didn't look like a cop. He looked like a movie cop. Grey t-shirt, black pants and a vest that I assumed was bullet proof and said POLICE. Badge. Gun.

"Have you seen a white male, bald, on foot... maybe came it to use the phone? Or anything?"

"No. But if I do, I'll call you guys."

"Thanks Ladies." He was off.

"That'll be $7.43." I reminded my customer.

"Oh. Sorry. I was distracted. I love cops. What if I see this guy? Give me your number."

She said she would call me and I could call the police. I guess she thinks I have this officer's direct line. We assured each other we would get the bad guy and she left laughing.

I'm sure Plaidshirt and the bald white guy on foot were unconnected but I bet I could write them together into a heck of a story. What I have to remember is not to continue telling myself those stories into the wee hours of the morning because it makes me do things like rip the packet of coffee in half and shower myself with granules when a door slams at a coffee making moment.

Memorial

Memorial Day is meant to be a day to honor soldiers fallen in battle. On neither my mother's or father's side were there any deaths in battle, though my father and two of his brothers served in WWII. In my family we have always used Memorial Day to commemorate the dead, no matter how they died. We have strewn silk flower arrangements the length and breadth of Mason County and across the river in Aberdeen. I have not been able to make the trip the last two times because of work, but my mother and brother will be going.

I was confused about war as a child. I knew my father had been a P.O.W. My brother told me that the episode about Sergeant York on the 60's TV drama Combat was really about our Dad. They had to change his name for TV. But the story was true, he assured me. Decades later when Jonathan Bolt came to Bardstown to help mount his rewrite of The Stephen Foster Story, I was thunderstruck while listening to his actor war-stories to discover that he had played that Sergeant York. It's one of those serendipitous moments that one feels sure is meaningful to the scheme and design of their life, though in this instance as in most similar ones, I have not discovered what that meaning could be.

I also knew that my Uncle Paul had been wounded, and that my Uncle Bill was not allowed to go for health reasons, but served in some civilian capacity. I understood that this was a source of shame for him. When I asked my mother where her brother, the other Uncle Bill, had served, she told me he hadn't. Not anywhere? That was embarassing. More confusing was the knowledge that neither grandfather had fought in any war. There just wasn't one for them to fight, Mom explained. I felt sorry for them. How humiliating. All men were supposed to be soldiers. My mother's position that they were lucky and grateful was perplexing.

Dad's war experiences were told in small clips here and there. He would never sit and spin stories. Something would remind him, and he would speak a sentence or two.

"I made them Germans laugh. I'd say "Ich bin deiner dolmacher..." and they'd just howl." This is a lot funnier if you know it was said with a heavy Kentucky accent and that "dolmetscher" means interpreter.

Or watching Hogan's Heros... "We had all that stuff. 'course not the tunnels or we'da left. But them radios and that. Them Germans was just that dumb."

"They got that Russian boy out of the jeep and just shot him. Just shot him. They hated them Russians."

Sergeant Ralph Henderson was the prison barber and helped to raise potatoes and make them into Vodka. It sounds like coping, but I have a letter he wrote to his mother from the camp. "I would give my eyes to be in good old America."

He managed more details about his time in North Africa. He and Uncle Paul served in the 1st Infantry, which a friend had to tell me was The Big Red One commemorated in the film. I have the one. The red patch from his uniform. I have no possession that I would not part with before that. Vivid in my mind are his words and voice telling of his disobeying orders and carrying his wounded brother down a mountain and away from the fighting. Uncle Paul was sent away to be patched up, only to eventually wind up on Normandy Beach, shot again. Dad wouldn't know this of course till later, because he was at Buchenwald. Barbering. Farming. Distilling. Watching butchery.

I saw a quote this morning that was to the effect that all soldiers are wounded in battle. I would go further and say that a part of any soldier dies in a war. A farmboy joined the army right before Pearl Harbor because he needed a job. He came home with night terrors, a drinking problem and a bad heart... and memories he couldn't talk about except in clips. He built a solid life for us, but was rarely peaceful. He could not be comfortable in a bed, but preferred an army cot. He swept up ants and other vermin and carefully put them outside, because "... everything loves its life." He swore that if my brother ever got the idea of joining the army he would "...knock him in the head, throw him in the trunk and drive to Canada."

Dad would say that we should be thinking about those other boys on Memorial Day. The ones that did not come home. But he would be smiling that small sideways smile that I inherited and secretly be pleased as punch that some fuss was made on his behalf. So... thanks Dad. For what you gave and what was taken. For coming back and fighting the everyday fight in the America you helped to preserve. You are my Memorial Day memory.