I am the best auntie in the world

and I have the patience of Job

photo via Pat Francis on Facebook

I went to Trader Joe’s yesterday to pick up some of my favorite salads, fruit, and snacks.

As I approached the store, I saw three separate stacks of those hand baskets outside the door. I went to grab one, and at the same time I went to grab it, another woman went to grab it as well.

Before you ask, yes she was.

I let her take it, and I grabbed a different one.

She stood there for a moment staring at me, and I wasn’t sure what was going on with her, so I walked around her and went into the store.

At this Trader Joe’s, when you walk in, you are immediately in front of the produce section. Since I wanted to grab some of my beloved Honeycrisp apples (they haven’t had the Cosmic Crisp apples in weeks, and I’m sad about it!), I walked over there to look.

I was standing there looking through the apples and thinking to myself how at only 11 a.m., the fruit already seemed really picked over when along comes that same lady, and apparently she really wanted some Honeycrisp apples too.

No problem. I moved out of the way to let her make her selections. I instead started looking at what was labeled as “apple pears” but I found out just now are actually Asian pears under another name. I bought them, and I tried one yesterday, and while it wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t overwhelmingly delicious either. I give it a 6/10, and that’s because I was very full after I ate it, so I’m sure it was full of fiber.

Anyway, I got sidetracked.

So I’m looking at these apple pears, and yo mama is still standing there in front of the honeycrisp apples, except instead of picking out apples, she … is … looking … at … me?

I started feeling like she wanted me to say something to her, and since I decided the day after the election that I am no longer here for white lady shenanigans, and I will no longer participate in their obvious Karen bullshit, instead of engaging her like she was fucking begging me to, I walked away.

Call it growth, bitch, because Monique even three months ago would have given her goofy ass exactly what she came for.

I moved around her and went instead in search of my favorite mild cheddar cheese sticks that I like to eat with my apples (apples and cheese are delicious together). I grabbed the cheese, found my salads, grabbed the chili lime pork rinds I told y’all about before plus their Funyuns (seriously, get those sour cream and onion lentil & rice snacks. They taste way better than Funyuns, and they are healthier too), and then I walked back over to the apples where everything was clear, got my apples, and went to check out.

All the lines are occupied, so I find one where the person in front’s cart was nearly emptied by the cashier, and I take my spot so I can be helped next.

Y’all.

Why this bitch come stand right behind me?

I’m pretty sure if I weren’t wearing a mask I would have smelled her breath because she was so close, I could feel it on my neck.

I stepped away from the register and went to another.

It’s obvious now that she’s trying something, but I’m still not sure what exactly, and I am determined to ignore her.

Thankfully, a new cashier opened up and called me over to ring me up. I make my purchases, go out to my car, and gotdammit.

Why was she parked next to me?

I’m sure her being parked next to me was just a coincidence, but the way she stared me down as I walked to my passenger side door to put my grocery bag on the seat was no coincidence.

She wanted some fucking smoke.

She was putting her things in her trunk, and my passenger door was on the same side as her driver side door, but there was plenty of room between us.

It takes me all of ten seconds to put the bag and the seat and close the door. As I’m walking around the car so I can get in the driver’s seat, she lets out this long ass exasperated sigh as if I had been holding her up all afternoon.

I still did not take the bait.

I ignored her, got in my car, and started doing my sit in the car routine which includes removing my mask, plugging in my phone, using hand sanitizer because outside is disgusting, and finally turning on the car.

Once the car is on, I look to my right, and she is still sitting there in her car staring at me. I’m ready to go, so I put my car in reverse so I can back out of the space.

This bitch proceeds to back her car out as well, and if you have ever been in a Trader Joe’s parking lot, you know there ain’t that much room for both of us to be out there like that.

I let her go first. She gives me one last long-ass look and leaves.

I still don’t get it, but whatever it was she was looking for, I’m glad I declined to engage her because the way all this pent up rage is built up, she may have gotten not just her ass whoopin’, but the one I owe the bitch that cut in front of a line of at least six people at Dunkin as if we weren’t all standing there (yes, she was), and the person who letting their dog shit all over the neighborhood and doesn’t bother picking it up.

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I am the best auntie in the world

My nephew goes to private school, and they are having a fundraiser which involves selling raffle tickets.

They gave each of the children 40 tickets to sell at $5 each.

I want y’all to know I sold 33 of them the first day I got them, and I just sold the other seven to his uncle (his dad’s brother).

My sister and my nephew didn’t even have to think about it. Last year, my sister ended up having to pay for the tickets because if you don’t sell them, they still make you give them the $200 cash anyway.

We wasn’t finna do that this year, baby.

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Let’s get into some other things I want to talk about, shall we?

I’m a journalist who appreciates great storytelling in journalism, and I read two articles this morning that epitomized this.

• For the Los Angeles Times, Matthew Ormseth and Libor Jany told the story of contract killers from Chicago coming to Los Angeles and carrying out their dirty deeds on a budget, so to speak.

• This NY Times story about NY real estate queen Alice Mason and her “secret” that is not at all a secret to any Black person who looks at her picture is another one with exemplary storytelling. I read it even though I already guessed the secret from her picture, and I wasn’t disappointed.

  • This also makes me want to read Our Kind of People by Lawrence Otis Graham. I’m going to add it to my Amazon book wishlist, and maybe someone who loves me or loves my writing or loves both will buy it for me.

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speaking of reading …

I’m rereading Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full again. I read this book back when it originally came out 26 years ago, but I’d forgotten a lot of it, so when I saw the miniseries on Netflix, I figured I’d read it again before watching the show.

I ended up getting distracted by something else, which happens a lot because of my ADHD, so I stopped around page 20.

Last night, I was looking for something to read on my Kindle, and I saw it in my library and decided I’d give it a go again.

I’ve been reading a lot of urban fiction and urban romance as of late, so I wanted to mix it up a little bit.

Before restarting this book, I was rereading Feelings For You over and over again. I’m serious.

Last year this time, I was reading Demon’s Dream over and over again.

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which brings me to another point …

I have made myself move away from using the phrase “neuro-divergent” because it implies that people with expansive minds and ways of moving in the world are “otherly” or somehow not the norm, and, frankly, there are so many of us out here, maybe you “normies” are the weirdos.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.

The way my neuro-expansive mind works, I get hyper-fixated on things sometimes. A book. A song. An album. A person. A television show. A movie. A specific meal.

It happens a lot.

Anyway, as I mentioned previously, my most recent hyper-fixation was the book Feelings For You.

As I mentioned before, when I initially started the book the first time, it took a minute for me to warm up to it, but once I did, I couldn’t stop reading it. I was reading it in every free moment I had.

I have the Kindle app on my phone and my tablet, so I basically have a book or 203984039842 with me everywhere I go.

I know I’m not the only one who does this? What do you hyper-fixate on?