"Excuse me. Can I bother you while we wait?"
Standing in line at Trader Joe’s this weekend, I felt a tap on my shoulder. “I don’t have my glasses,” the short older woman behind me said in a Long Island accent. “Can you tell me how much fat and sugar these have in them?” She gestured to a pack of muffins.
I obliged, and she looked horrified when I told her there were 26 grams of sugar in the muffins.
“I guess I’ll have to give them to my husband,” she recovered. I looked at her her plump figure: doubtful.
I would’ve returned to minding my business, but she felt compelled to give me a nutritional lesson. “Anything more than 9 grams of fat or 9 grams of sugar is just off limits. I mean, I think trans fats are bullshit, but otherwise, you just have to stay below nine.”
I nodded, as if I read nutritional labels for kicks, trying to conceal my stack of frozen mini tacos and eggrolls.
She took it in, then looked at me, changing the topic. “Are you going to the pool today?”
As it turns out, I was planning to go to the pool — to Alan’s pool, but still the question threw me. How random? I mean, how many people in DC have a pool to go to?
I said I was, and she responded, “It is pretty tough around 2pm. Just too intense. And the sun damage? Forget about it!”
I told her I wear SPF 70, a hat and sunglasses. She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. The damage has already been done. I lived on a beach my whole life and if it weren’t for Botox – Thank God – I’d look like a crow.”
A leather satchel or a dried apple would’ve been a more apt comparison, since I don’t think of crows as looking particularly weathered. I’m guessing she meant some sort of “crow’s feet” reference.
Fortunately, before I could respond (presumably she was fishing for a compliment or commiseration), one of the cashiers gave me a wave. “Next customer!”
Relieved, I turned to the woman and nodded, pleased at my restraint for resisting the urge to whisper, “caw, caw…” in farewell.
pithypants 