During lunch I go to Walmart, and I look at a Brinkman grill/smoker combo that’s half price at the end of the season, and then I buy a couple of things.
As I leave, this loud tone goes off, and an authoritative male voice tells me to please step back the Walmart inventory control system has been activated.
A small older lady runs over and grabs my bag before I can object, and takes it back through the scanner thingies, and the Walmart inventory control system once again announces that it has been activated.
She takes the one item out of the bag matches it against the receipt in the bag, scans it with a magic wand, hands it back to me, and I leave.
I put on my sunglasses and walk back to my car, trying to decide whether something has just occured that I ought to be pissed off about about.
As I open my car door, I hear this voice.
“Excuse me?” The voice is attached to a dumpy looking woman with a hard face. She’s about my age, 35, wearing jeans and a plain shirt. She has just stepped out of a minivan that must be fifteen years old. Instantly I categorize her:
Frizzy hair, never went to college, single parent, waitress or menial worker, unintelligent, well-meaning.
I raise my eyebrows as she walks over, on guard. “Yes?” I ask politely.
“I hope you don’t think it’s nosy, and I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to ask, what are you?”
That’s what she said. Truly. Not who are you, but “what are you?”
I’m not sure what she means, but I do not like this question. Not at all. I feel uncomfortable, like now I have to lie, and upon later reflection, I do.
Because way down deep, where my instant asessments occur, and where the information and analysis comes from the parts of me that don’t subscribe to bullshit, but just give me truth I have an idea what’s going on here.
Different scenarios of this kind of thing have happened before. I will try to explain it. I appear handsome, strong, wealthy, powerful, confident, intelligent, and …kind.
I know this is how I appear, because it’s a work day, and my appearance is carefully cultivated to give off these impressions, and after 15 years of practice I’ve gotten quite good at it.
And now, this woman, drawn by these impressions is asking “What are you?”
What an affront to ask such a thing! Particularly as she appears to have none of my attributes. The truth is she appears weak, stupid, poor, friendless, uncertain, and not particularly nice.
The fact that she’s accosting me in a parking lot, doesn’t add anything to my opinion.
“Excuse me,” I ask. I’m standing by my open car door, and she walks up and puts her hand on the door and looks at me.
Again, I think I know what’s going on, here, but all kinds of alarms are going off in my head. It would be weird to be mugged in daylight in a parking lot, and I’m not a good target as I am large and strong looking. Nevertheless I keep my eyes on her hands and look around in my peripheral vision trying to sense an accomplice who may act while I am distracted. I sense nothing, but stay on guard.
“If it’s ok, I just wanted to know what you are. I’m just curious,” she asks again.
“I’m just a guy,” I say. I don’t say “I am just a man.” That would sound important or serious as well as cliche, and give her an opportunity to let me know that she was “just a woman,” and I don’t want that. I want to put her off politely.
“I mean are you a Doctor or a Lawyer or something?”
I get into my car, which unfortunately at this moment is a convertible with the top down. It does not create a barrier.
“No. Nothing like that. I’m nobody special.”
I put the key in the ignition, and start the car. She’s still standing there.
I wait to see what she is going to do or say. Implications and memes, and mores hang in the air, and I hope that their strength is enough to end the encounter.
Apparently they are.
She smiles at me. “Everybody’s special.”
“That’s what they say,” I reply, tactfully unwilling to concede as much, and she walks away.
I pass by her in the parking lot as she’s walking towards the store, and she says “Have a nice day.”
Weird and disturbing.
“You, too?”