"Zacariah Hits"

So says the Jujube to me yesterday afternoon after our weekly Little Gym class. We arrive every week far too early for class because 1) I want a window seat so I can keep an eye on the in-class goings on and, 2) I'm afraid if I leave at the exact time an efficiency expert would select as optimal, that would be the day Jujube decides that it's more fun to run away from Mommy than to sit down docilely and have her shoes tied and coat zipped. Murphy is my master. When fully enforced, his laws sting like salted whip burns. And so when we duly arrive early at the Little Gym, Jujube peers through the front door into the often half-lit interior and announces "The boys aren't here yet."

She definitely remembers the first week incident with boyshit whose mother, by the way, isn't abused or mean-spirited. She's just distracted by the world's biggest 17 month old. Her "little" guy is 35 pounds of roly-poly. Jujube hasn't even cleared the 30 mark yet and this woman is hoisting a 35-pounder onto her lap to nurse him. Anyway, not only is she distracted, she definitely has that Mommy Blindness we all get. You know, everything about our kids is wonderful and everyone else can't possibly help loving them as much as we ourselves do. It is good to be reminded of this. Point taken, thank you Ms. Object Lesson.

I worry that the Jujube has inherited my Poop Magnet. I seem to attract people whose karmic mission this life is to spray their shit onto those of us with highly receptive Poop Sensors. You know the people I mean: you see them in traffic tailgating other drivers, rushing to arrive at the end of a queue simultaneously with someone else so they can engage in pissing matches, sitting directly in front of others in nearly empty cinemas. In my case, they seek me in the supermarket. Me. The only person in all of eastern Massachusetts so neurotic about staying out of other people's way I spend fully half my grocery shopping time trying to park my cart in as inoffensive, non-blocking a position as possible and still be able to actually recognize from the safe distance the facial features on my offspring in the child seat. People, I stand and wait for the elderly person blocking the aisle ahead of me to finish selecting the exact right brand of prune juice rather than push my cart past her and huff my impatience in the normal manner of Market Bastard shoppers.

Part of the problem here is that I choose to shop at the tragically outdated but shockingly cheap grocery in my town. I could be cruising the aisles in relative comfort at the Super Stop and Shop but I believe paying a $60 weekly premium for human interaction avoidance is a bit steep. So I shop at the Bastard. The always crowded, stinky, narrow-aisled, full of old people and townies, shrink wrapped produce on styrofoam trays, closes at 9PM and 6 on Sunday, under $100 per week, affordable, 1970's time-warp DeMoula's Market Bastard.

The cost to my hypersensitive psyche may be a bit too high though. It seems that no matter what obscure imported Surinamian salt-cod display I park my shopping cart in front of, there's some townie or crabby-assed old lady that HAS to shop there RIGHT NOW and CANNOT wait for ME like I would have waited for her to be finished. And not only do they need to shop RIGHT THERE RIGHT NOW, but they feel the need to lecture me about what a selfish bitch I am for blocking their access to victuals they obviously need immediately or they'll perish from spontaneous starvation right there in front of me and my kid and it won't be pretty either you heinous, self-absorbed bitch lady from deepest recesses of sulphurous hell!

Just last week, I was parked in the canned tomato aisle (this is Italian country -- there's a whole aisle devoted to processed tomato products) when a townie whizzed by me and, despite the fact that I saw her coming from my periphery and slid my cart forward and closer to the shelves, she still managed to clip the stepping stool a shelf restocker was standing atop while replenishing a supply of vital red canned goods. He went flying and landed on a box of something waiting to be shelved -- well, probably after his fall, no longer in the Italian aisle but in the Reduced For Quick Sale Dented Crap bins. (Great! Can't park there, now.) Fortunately, no one was injured. However, Townie Shit Fairy felt I needed a good dressing down for causing the whole accident by my very existence. So, even though she had stopped to check on the shelf stocker's welfare, then had beat a hasty and embarrassed retreat up the aisle, she worked her way back to mention to me that, in the future when I see someone coming behind me (yes, Denters, my ability to see in directions my eyes don't face is frightening) I really ought to step out of their way.

Uh. OK. Like,
1) I did,
2) Why couldn't you just wait, like I would have waited for you?
3) The only way I could have moved farther out of the way was to leave the store entirely (a Townie and Crabby-Assed Old Lady goal, I know),
4) Maybe if you'd have bothered to slow down you wouldn't have caused that poor guy's life to flash before his eyes, and
5) Try saying excuse me next time.

For the record, I only managed to say the last thing on this list to the Shit Princess. She flipped me off, naturally. Of course, you know, she is right. This would never have happened if I didn't exist.

These encounters leave me shaking, friends. They make me wonder what it is about me, what pheromone I exude, that invites people to knock me down a peg or twelve. This particular time, though, I got a different reading on the whole experience. It dawned on me that no matter how nice you think you are or unassuming or thoughtful or anticipatory of the needs of others, there are people out there who will just spray their shit inadvertently around themselves wherever they go and with any luck some of it will land on people like me with highly tuned, supersensitive receptors at which point they grab the opportunity to validate their shit.

I would like to think that this sensitivity might perhaps be an exploitable talent but I'm having trouble thinking of a positive, fulfilling use for it. Worse, I am beginning to entertain the depressing notion that perhaps my daughter has been equally endowed.