Ottawa Is How Big?
This would probably be best left unblogged because it's a specific story about a specific person who was probably not expecting to be quoted on the Interwebs, but enh, what the fuck. It doesn't make her look bad or anything, and it's been making me giggle.
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The first time I saw a picture of Eric's ex, A., I thought "Aha, good then, I'm his type." Not that she and I look alike - no one would ever confuse us - but we have a similar fresh-faced look about us. I bet old ladies ask her for directions all the time too.
When he and I were dating, we hardly ever ran into her. Even though she lived about 5 blocks away from me, 3 from Eric, on a major street where we walked all the time, separately and together.
Even for the near year and a half since he and I broke up, I've hardly seen her. Maybe three or four times, randomly. Generally in the distance. Considering the proximity of our abodes, and our circles of friends, it's a shock.
These past few weeks, though, we've started to end up in the same space at the same time. Neither here nor there, really, except that we were only ever introduced the once, and it was kind of odd, as it almost always is, meeting the ex, even when it's polite all around. It was also brief and a long time ago now, so I wasn't ever sure she knew who I was.
Again, neither here nor there.
Yesterday I did my regular grocery shopping, ending up at Hartman's. At one point, standing in front of the meat counter, waiting my turn for some pancetta, I looked up and there she was. It's narrow in that spot, and I had to shift my cart to give her room to pass. We smiled, said hello, how's it going, see you around.
As I waited for my meat, her outfit registered on my brain. She'd been tucking purple-framed sunglasses into the top of a brown t-shirt. Dark blue skinny jeans, brown metallic converse. Short hair, an asymmetrical cut all weekend wind-mussed.
I looked down at myself. Brown canvas converse, dark blue skinny jeans, a brown t-shirt. Purple glasses. And short, asymmetrical hair. Of a type, indeed.
It made me snort, just as the woman was handing me my fancy bacon. Then, as I checked my list and moved out of Produce, it passed out of my mind. Taken up as it was with finding dried beans and such.
For the last item, I found myself in a quandary in front of the frozen fruit. If you want to know how many questions one can ask oneself about both the economy and the desirability of frozen fruit, also as well the pros and cons of each option, please don't hesitate to email me for a free analysis. I'd probably been standing there for about 5 minutes when I noticed someone coming up the aisle on my right side.
It was A. She looked sheepish. "Um, honestly, I'm not stalking you," she smiled.
"Ha, no." I said back. "It would seem as if -"
At this point, I knew what was going to come out of my mouth. And I knew I was probably going to sound, at best, like some kind of inappropriate weirdo, and at worst, like some kind of inappropriate asshole. Whatever, I was powerless to stop the words.
"-we just have quite similar taste."
And then I blushed. Very bright red.
Because I'm smooth like that, my cover was to babble about the price frozen fruit by the 100 grams, desperately wanting to flee the scene, but then feeling strange about it, because why would I have been standing there so studiously to leave without fruit? And why should I flee? It's not like I'd insulted her mother, only pointed out the obvious. I stood my embarrassed ground and prayed that she was not going to have a fruit quandary herself and would just grab some bag of some size of some fruit and leave me to cool my face in the freezer.
She did, thank christ, and I did too, grabbing the big bag of 4-berries on my way out.
