Showing posts with label age. Show all posts
Showing posts with label age. Show all posts

handicapped stalls, city malls

by savannah | tags: , , , | 0 comments
As per usual, my shifts begin with a trip to the bathroom. All I can hear while I close my door in the handicapped stall (though I think they should all be handicapped, really, for what normal individual would willingly enter a department store?) are the cries of saggy-diapered toddlers to their equally saggy mothers. "If you're good," they coo, "you can get two cookies for lunch." (I would never give my hypothetical child a cookie, not because I don't love them but because it means two hours of additional activity.) Meanwhile on my porcelain throne, I'm staring at the grout between the tiles and am wondering how, given how dark and permanent it appears, it is so easy to fall beneath it and into the throes of retail. Or just anything, really. And all I do is sit on the toilet, with hands cupping my cheeks and listening to the vague sound of flatulence (suspicions are confirmed in approximately three seconds) of middle-aged women who probably once rolled their eyes at elastic waists, too.

I like the handicapped stall because it's furthest from the sinks, and therefore furthest from people. It has a long counter inside it, too. But I couldn't really tell you why, nor could the legitimately handicapped, I'd imagine. Sometimes when I am seeking an extended vacation from the innumerable joys of clothes-folding and credit-opening, I like to prop myself up on the counter and examine my face after I've finished scoping my more important surroundings. I notice that the things that used to go away once I relaxed my jaw now stay a little longer, and I see what looks like a small boomerang beginning to form atop my eyebrow. I should stop being so expressive, maybe. However, I was unaware that mimicking the dead (lest I forget I work 40 hours a week) called for any semblance of brow arching. Occasionally I am distracted by the sound of excrement dropping into the toilets nearby like slightly overweight children cannon balling into a swimming pool, and realize that for better or for worse, I'm not alone in all of this. Funny it took the sound of shit to know this. Then I hear the flushing and the tap-tap-tapping of impatient feet and decide it's time to get back to work.

So I fake flush (because for whatever reason I want people to think that I too just finished my business) and saunter over to the sink, past the scrunchied women splaying their babies' pudgy legs and past the women with hands whose skin resembles a piece of paper that's been through one or three loads of laundry, and then I unfortunately stare at myself again and those growing wrinkles. Babies are crying to my right and I can just feel the heavy sighs of their tired mothers hit the floor in between the flushing and phlegm-hocking of musky women in polyster pants. And in the back of my mind, in the same place that told me to keep moving, there's also a voice that says that while I know that I'm no better and made of no worse, I really, really, am not ready for any of this. Please God, at least not now. Not yet. I'd rather cast aspersions on a line so far away into (and maybe from) my future that I never have to reel them in, or worse, be reeled in by them.

I finish washing my hands and pitch my lightly used towel into the wastebasket and wander like an ant back to my register, knowing that I will inevitably suffer the company of a yellowed man who thinks he's smoother than silk when purchasing his poor wife a neglige made of its cheap and scratchy imitation for $3, and all I can think of are the heavy sighs that reverberated on the tiles and how they probably sound similar to those made at night after the act (albeit brief) is over and she can finally take off that itchy nightgown that resembles a miniature tree skirt. And then I sigh, which probably sounds similar to that one made by an old woman looking at her confetti of pills that she must take each morning with food. But I guess there's no use in sighing, because soon enough I'll be wiping asses and then too-soon enough will be having my own cleaned as well, this time by someone whom I pay to be nurturing. Meanwhile, the voice of the faceless pop star provides a necessary distraction as I step foot on the escalator. It is vague and unobtrusive, making my ascent to reality a little less painful.

I see my coworkers, and the are smiling. Cheryl is full-time and has pepper colored hair. Karen is also full-time and offered me her aspirin the day I faked a sprained ankle to leave work early. She is one of the friendliest people I know, and part of me wishes that she knew I was (and am) full of shit. The act of keeping a smile even after you realize that life can be full of sighs and shit is one on which I need to work, but maybe it's something that comes with adulthood. I can only hope. I guess.

little rubies

by savannah | tags: , , , , | 0 comments
The light is red and I'm wedged somewhere between a school bus and a hearse like a long necklace suffocating between the sweaty breasts of a top-heavy woman. My windows are down, so the exhaust of both of these ample-reared vehicles makes me a bit weary of breathing. For a minute I see the battery-powered magic of light up tennis shoes as they enter and exit the fingerprinted doors of the banana colored bus. Little flashes of ruby seep in and out of the cheap rubber soles of her shoes. I think back to when I wished paste flavored ice cream existed because I thought it smelled fancy, and when I used to stack the deck at Candy Land so I could beat my grandmother during the afternoons I spent at her house eating gingersnaps and drinking sugar-free lemonade. The blinking lights must distract me because soon enough the familiar drone of the yellow bus grows softer and is quickly replaced with the heavy honk of the hearse behind me. The dead are impatient, apparently. I'm moving, asshole, is what my eyes say to the asterisk-mouthed hearse driver staring menacingly into my rearview mirror. My light is green now, so I accelerate and begrudgingly continue on my way to the job that I find mildly depressing. And I exhale, even though I know that one day that hearse is going to catch up with me again and swallow me into its silk-lined hole. I just hope my driver is more patient with young ladies who like to take their time.

Age

by savannah | tags: , , | 0 comments

You know a scary thought? Ourselves in 50 years.

The other afternoon, I was at work and an older man came in with his equally elderly wife. Time's inevitable hash marks were abundant on both of their faces. I knew something was wrong with him when he stopped for a few moments too long in the automatic doorway, causing the receipts on the counter to flutter about aimlessly like gulls on a beach. I looked to the source of the wind, and saw the man, hunched over, staring at me, and glub-glub-glubbing like a fish. I said hello, he said nothing. Although, he did smile...and I must say, it reminded me of a gondola. Thin, wide, and upturned. Unsure of how to respond, I returned a modest grin and went about my business.

After approximately 20 minutes of meandering, the old couple arrived at the counter, ready to check out. It was relatively unremarkable, until I finished ringing them up. He stayed for a moment too long, and then pushed a basket full of cookies to me. The woman laughed nervously and looked to me for understanding. I played the neanderthal-esque cashier and continued smiling. He pushed the basket closer to me, this time with a more aggravated expression. The corners of his lips began to turn down, no longer resembling his erstwhile grin. Hoping to keep things lighthearted, I laughed nervously, asking if he was going to be able to eat all of those. His wife began to pull at his jacket. Lifting his frail and spotted hand into the air, he shooed her. She pulled again. "You can't have those," she said, "it's time to go." He began to shake his head, and she tugged once more.

Like an earthquake, I could feel it before I actually saw its effects. He slammed his fist onto the steel counter, causing receipts to fly once again. I could see the blood flee from his hands until his once pink fist was completely white. "Goddamnit," he spewed, "I'll go when I please!" The man tore at her paper thin wrists and shoved her aside. And in that moment, I saw Time make five more hash marks on her face.

"I'm so sorry," I muttered. I had no idea what to do.

Like a dog, she slowly followed her master, tail tucked under her floor length skirt. I watched them as the doors shut. She shook her head in shame. "You embarrassed me," she cried. He said nothing, but stood there, stoic and stunted. She pressed her recently bruised hands to her face, and then placed one on the nape of his neck, the other to his forearm, and they began walking.

I would have continued to watch, but was interrupted by a gaggle of girls asking for job applications.

I assumed the man suffered from Alzheimer's or Dementia and was in the throes of a rather violent bout with it. And then I wondered, who would I rather be? The old man who wakes every morning to a sagging and decrepit body, not realizing who he is, or what that sallow skin even represents? Or the haggard woman who is reminded daily of her age? Which is worse: blindness or sight?

But, I suppose it ultimately doesn't matter how we go into the night, for it will always be dark.
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