Hide Your Nuts, People

All the freaks seemed to find me today - an assortment of oddballs that popped up wherever I went. The result of spending my day surrounded by strange strangers has left me feeling rather, um, normal by comparison. Perhaps I am delusional, and I am someone else's epitome of oddity, but at least I'm not these folks -

First: School Picture Photographer (a.k.a. The Bunnyman)
Today was school picture day, so I had to go through the yearly horror that is waiting in line and having my mugshot snapped. I have found that pictures of me are slightly more tolerable if I smile without showing my teeth. True, it can get a bit smirky, but at least my eyes aren't all squinty and bizarre, right?

So that was my plan.
The toothless smile.
Check!

The photographer whose station I end up with has a stuffed blue rabbit attached to the top of his camera. (Note: I loathe Blue Bunny ice cream, so he was already on my bad side.) Anyhow, he wasn't happy with the smirky smile I was trying to cling to while looking relaxed and casual and not at all like someone who's being told to tilt her head fifteen degrees to the left and tuck her chin under just a bit.

Once he's got me all posed up, I can tell it's time. He's about to take the picture. I try to keep my eyes relaxed and fight the urge to blink. He says, "Okay, now give me a great big smile just like - this guy!" And as he says it, he opens his hand that is just to the left of the camera. In the center of his palm he has drawn a big smiley face with Sharpie marker.

It was the schtickiest thing I've ever seen.
And it made me grin.
Damn you, Bunnyman.
I shall curse your name every time I look at my squinty little eyes on my new ID badge.

Second: Fellow Target Shopper (a.k.a. Talkative Tampon Lady)
I was in the politely-dubbed feminine hygiene (where the clean women shop, I guess) aisle at Target tonight when this twentysomething woman appeared next to me and proceeded to narrate her entire tampon selection process.

"Hmmm, tampons, tampons, tampons. Oh, yes, over here. I need the regulars. Reg-u-lars, not the supers. Hello? Generics? Where do they hide the generics? Oh, here. Man, I just LOVE having my period." 

And she did it all in this singsongy voice. I half expected her to throw in the occasional "tra-la-la!" as she went on and on.

This seems like the sort of thing that should either be a completely-interior monologue or, if it must be spoken aloud, done in a quiet, talking to myself tone. But not this lady. She was in full-volume conversation mode. Made eye contact and smiled at me too. Like we're besties now or something.

Third: Woman at the Checkout (a.k.a. Visibly Neurotic Lady)
She had a TON of stuff on the conveyor belt, but they only had three lanes open, so I ended up in line behind her. I was kinda zoned out, looking at the mints and skimming the magazine covers, when I noticed the continual prattle of the lady in front of me.

I looked up and quickly figured out that she was methodically going through her pile of purchases and telling the cashier in what order they should be rung up. It wasn't just your run of the mill don't put that loaf of bread under the laundry detergent stuff, either. It was more along the lines of: "Ring up the blue t-shirt first, then the pink one. No, wait! Do the socks before the shirts!" And she had a twitchy, frantic quality about her as she did this. Like she was REALLY worried things might get rung up out of order.

I thought that she might be buying for more than herself and wanted the items bagged according to who they belonged to, but she was ignoring the bagging process entirely. She was fixated on the ringing up - the order of the ringing up.

It was odd enough just at that, but she also kept apologizing to the cashier. "Oh, I'm sorry. I know. I know. Oh, wait! We need the Life Savers next!"

It got to the point where the maternal instincts within the high-school aged cashier kicked in, and she started soothing the woman with, "It's okay. You're fine. We'll get it all right. You'll be fine."

Then the couple who were fighting - loudly - about the fact that he'd wanted to go to Wal-Mart instead of Target pulled in line behind me. Obviously, their entire shopping experience had been nothing but a series of disappointments, and he was about to enumerate them to her and once and for all prove how dumb she was to have dragged him into this damn store.

I was so glad Visibly Neurotic Lady was done.
She was in WAY too fragile a state to be exposed to that.