Possibilites

This is a day full of possibilites. Ever thought about what that really means?

It means those mechanics across the sunny morning rush of taffic might somehow cross my path today , and their gray overalls might become intricately connected with my blue Pot Belly shirt in this social circle of life.

Ever thought about how many chance encounters we experience in any one given day?

There were the countless cars of purposeful people we passed only minutes ago (we being my mother and I). My dear mother patted her highly-piled hair and dropped me off at Caribou Coffee, so I could properly enjoy my remaining hour before work.

I am so in love with these wooden tables and this bitter, heavily-sugared coffee. I am in love with the two police officers drinking ocffee near the door that gave me "the nod" when I entered, and the younger one that gave me a smile of appreciation. Well, it was either appreciation, or he found it amusing that I opened the door, felt a sneeze coming, shut the door and waited, sneezed, and then entered my favorite, as of yet uncontaminated, coffee shop.

$1.73. That's worth this atmosphere, wouldn't you say? But enough of me. I'm taking away all the mystery of this random blogging & coffee morning. What a wonderful way to begin the morning, though! Celebrate the last day I work at Pot Belly. I honestly don't know that I'll miss it too much. I'm ready to move on. I'm ready to soar on these unknown clouds to the Jazzy tunes of the '20's. Past or future... I don't care where I go!

I wish I could describe something unique. As it is, in my effort to obtain privacy, I am in the corner of this Caribou Coffee place all by myself, left to the checker marks on the high wooden table, the rush of sunny traffic out the window to my right, and the spectacularly clean window directly in front of me which looks out on...parking lot. lol.

A young boy just waddled up, and with him a significantly chubbier, younger, and more clueless little boy you will never see. I say clueless because it took him 5 minutes to look up at me and stare curiously, whereas the other, more persceptive boy has been watching me with open curiosity upon sighting me.

Beyond a smile and a 'hi', I'm ignoring them both, because the worst thing is befriending a strangers' children. Why? Because when the stranger finally arrives (which she just did) she would naturally be suspicious of her children's new found friend. But... maybe that's just my own paranoia. Maybe it's what I automatically think of other people who are friendly with strangers. I'm suspicious. I'm thinking "Where's your motive? What do you have to gain? What do YOU want? Who do you think you are?" I don't know why I always put myself through such drama. I'm so used to being behind a counter when I talk with strangers, that I'm slightly uncertain of what people want from me/think of me when I can't give them food. I have no REASON to talk to them. So why should I put myself through something unnecessary when I'm not even certain they will WANT to talk to me?

Thus, our social circles continue to be intricately combined, but thinly separated by a certain sense of individual pride. I, like many people, am prone to find a private corner, and observe life from a distance... imagining myself in it... imagining myself as that middle-aged mother who watches her children and answers their pertinent toy questions, beginning with a "Yes, hon," when they cry, "Mama," helpless of solving their own simple problems.

I can't imagine such a responsibility. CHILDREN. How does one answer every question and love them supremely above all else? The latter seems inevidably eaiser. No? Yes?

My parents always pointed me to the Bible. That was the answer to... everything. And if the answer wasn't written clearly, there was always some applicable principle. I suppose even now that teaching guides me. I see myself in the reflection and know I am similar to all these people rushing with places to go, and yet... I am different. Different from them ALL. Somehow I must know and understand myself in order to understand random people. People keep to themselves because it's easier. At least, these are the people I know up north. I don't know. Do people change as one goes south of this land?

I do believe people change according to their environment. Not always. But there is a change in people when they are faced with different circumstances. Like this coffee shop. It makes me sentimental. And yet, I've always had a POTENTIAL for sentiments within me. This place, a pen, and paper, just reveal and document it.

* NOTE * This entry was written on Wednesday, August 27, my last day of work at Pot Belly (thank you, God), and just 3 days before I leave for college. I fly down south on the 30th and say goodbye to cold, drafty, northern winter, and HELLO to rainy, muggy, warmer weather. ;) I have mixed feelings about it all... even I cannot decipher what it is I am thinking about.... COLLEGE. It seems big and looming and mean. Everyone just keeps telling me it's so humiliating to be a freshman, and you know what I said? TOUGH. Every one there was a freshman at one point. The only thing that separates them from me and it, is time. Same with 7th grade. Wasn't highschool a little frightening to enter into, too? And what about kindergarten? I don't remember having any fears, but I hear it's a terror to begin school for the first time EVER. So I've gotten this far. I figure I'll make it. Might even have fun. ;) Anyways, I'm sure I'll talk to you guys later before I leave. Been kinda busy, as you might guess. If you want to contact me, feel free to comment here, or email me at countrygirlstyle@gmail.com. I will do what I can to filter through my stalkers, and reply to those of you who are good, upstanding people who just happen to read my... very long blog. ;) No, seriously, though. Thanks for reading.

Wonderbar

I loved my Friday! I just had a really good day. Granted, I’ve been working at Grace’s again this week and I had to say goodbye to all my old customers AGAIN today, but otherwise I just really enjoyed today. I can’t really put my finger on what it was, but I do know it was fun.

I love how I just went outside and picked a handful of raspberry’s directly from the bush in my back yard. You have no idea how sweet and delicious a from-the-stem raspberry is - and how it melts in your mouth. It doesn’t get any fresher than that! I just feel so much like that raspberry…. Fresh.

Maybe this new fresh feeling I have is because Grace is having me try this new product of hers called ‘CYCLIC’. She insisted the product is ‘miracle working’ and so therefore I had no choice in the matter. A big box of the product came in the mail the other day and I opened it with unveiled curiosity. “Wow,” I said, handing the little bars of soap to her. “Look what the UPS guy just delivered!” She squealed and rummaged through the products, instructing me to display them nicely on our counter. She was so excited that it became pretty contagious. She was discussing the product with Jane, one of our regulars, and Jane and I were both becoming impressed with how “miracle working” it was supposed to be.

“Well, how much is it, Grace?” Jane asked.

“Eighty dollah,” she said without hesitation. My jaw dropped, and Jane was equally shocked. A bar of soap for 80 dollars! I would have found 8 dollars to be a bit high, but 80? Later, Grace checked and found out that the product that is supposed to sell for $80 has yet to come, and the bar of soap Jane and I had been looking at was actually $35. Still…

“It’s cleanser, not soap,” Grace kept correcting me. Still…

Then, Grace was REALLY nice and gave me a $10 sample bar of this cleanser to try for myself. Along with this bar, she told me to watch the CYCLIC promotional DVD. So I took the thing home and watched it. Almost the minute I started it, I wanted to laugh and post it on You Tube or something. It was a classic sales-promotional DVD that admitted at the very end (in very small print) that ‘some parts of this program have been dramatized via testimonials’.
It started with a leggy brunette who didn’t have an ounce of stage presence, but who did have a short green dress on that was 3 sizes too small. She smiled and began in her silky voice to tell her captive audience that she understood what it was like to want to look beautiful - because ALL women want to look beautiful! (I had a hard time imagining such a product gave her long legs a size 2 waist). She then flashed another dazzling smile and the screen shot out to take in all 245 pounds of a bald doctor who kept the exact same expression for the entire 5 minutes he talked about CYCLIC. There was an appropriately dull white background behind him - and maybe a palm plant or two. Next the screen shot through rapid pictures of a busy city area and an unknown person (probably the prior leggy brunette) interviewed countless women with flawless faces and asked them what they struggled with. Some of the questions asked were,

“How many products do you use now?”
And,
“Do you have body odor?”

These questions were posed to supposedly random women in a busy city street, and none of them batted an eyelash when it came to answering the questions.

Anyways, this product is supposed to do EVERYTHING. (Which, admittedly makes me skeptical.) It not only CAN, but WILL remove your makeup, reduce your acne, eliminate allergy rashes, reduce your calluses (which they spelled wrong in the pamphlet), take away foot odor, take away athletes foot, be used as underarm deodorizer, relieve you from itching skin (alert: mosquito bites!), and take away dandruff in your hair.

All of this is not so ridiculous if treated by a few different products, but to imagine one product handling them all? Well, I’ve never heard of it before. I have to admit it reminded me of that one commercial for, “Acne, Windows, and more.” Heh.

Well, then the leggy brunette gave another dazzling smile and she sat down gracefully on a couch and said, “And today we have with us…. (give me a name) Megan! Megan, it’s so fabulous to have you! I’m so glad to see you! Why don’t you tell the audience why you’re here today.” Now I am a very perceptive person when it comes to telling whether or not a person is genuine, and this brunette didn’t have a genuine bone (or brain) in her body.
Megan, on an opposing couch, adjusted her skirt and gave an equally ditzy smile and said, “Well, I am just so glad to be here,” there was a shared over-kill on the enthusiasm for them both. “I just wanted to say …” she breathed in passionately, “…to all you women out there… that all of your problems are over! This product….” I was laughing.

There were a few more interviews, in which one or two of the testimonials seemed more genuine and they actually had faces that looked like Grace’s. They looked smooth and supple and refreshed. I’m guessing those were the people who had not been chosen to dramatize their testimonial. Because, who out there would be willing to go on a DVD program and talk extensively about what HORRIBLE body odor they had until CYCLIC was applied to the right places? Right. I’m with you.

Basically there were a couple more scenes with the bald doctor and then the horrible DVD ended. I told Grace she should get her own testimonials. I encouraged, “You’ve got the right idea with forcing me to try the product. If it works on ME, you can take my picture and then make your own DVD/pamphlet.” There. That’s genuine. Then I’LL be the leggy brunette, and the whole world of CYCLIC customers will doubtless find me irresistibly genuine.

That of course is if I like the product. So far so good. I'm thinking if I do like it, I will call it Wonderbar, and take on a German accent just for kicks.

Anyways, so what else happened today? The security guard in our building had a rather rare bird jump in his hand while he was watering the flowers in front of our building. I learned this because he came into the shop to tell us about the little bird. I guess the bird had blue bands around its ankles and so my security guard friend and the manager of the building had to hold the bird upside down to read the number on the bands. (I can only picture a comical scene.) My security guard friend called the number and the guy who answered was almost in tears when he heard what bird had been found, and began immediately telling him how to care for the bird until someone could come pick it up. Come to find out, the pigeon sitting in a bucket in my building was one of the only females of its kind surviving and was worth 150 thousand dollars! What are the odds, huh? First a miracle bar of soap and then an ugly, expensive bird? I told my friend, “What are you still doing here? Why aren’t you running out that door with that bird and putting it on eBay?” Anyways, I got to pet the poor lame thing. I thought, “Hey, not bad! How awesome would it be to raise these things? And the money's not bad either…”

I went bowling! That’s rare for me. Bowling make me very insecure because I always get excited that I might make a strike and then the dumb ball goes in the gutter again and I have to turn around and face everybody’s polite faces. I hate that! But today I went with just my family, and I had so much fun! At the end I handed back my ugly bowling shoes to the bowling guy and he said, “How’d you do?” I smiled and crowed victoriously, “80! The best I’ve ever done!” That made my brother laugh because he considers himself very suave when it comes to bowling. He of course, won with ease, and I had to struggle with defeat. I really hate losing.

The last exciting thing that I did today was that I went to a Chinese buffet with my brother and I ate like NO American food! (another first for me). I tried a little bit of almost everything -- I even cracked into a lobster leg and tried to eat it. I was very proud of myself. The only problem with my dining experience was my bad fork. They gave me a bent fork that dug into my mouth funny every time I tried to eat with it. The only other options I had were either chopsticks or my knife. I was trying to eat rice with a chop stick and that was horrible, and I was tired of my brother laughing at me, so I used my knife. Why other option did I have? Besides, the thing was so dull that I was in no danger of cutting myself from eating the deliciously gooey pudding rice with a knife. But you should’ve seen the face of my Chinese waitress! She had a hard time with English and had been smiling politely all evening, but when she went by my table and saw me eating with my knife, she gave this guttural, “Oh!” and her oriental eyes went wide with shock. It was so funny! And I had forgotten I was even eating with a knife and just smiled at her. About five minutes later I realized why she had given me that shocked expression, hah, and I just started laughing and laughing, replaying that expression over and over in my mind. When I told my brother, he started laughing too, especially since rice and fruit began spilling out of my mouth. Then the guy in the table behind us like sneezed and there was like this big explosion and we started laughing harder. We ended the evening with fortune cookies.

“You took my fortune cookie,” I accused, and he shrugged cheerfully. I really said that as insurance, just in case I didn’t like the fortune I got. I ended up getting the better fortune, though, and when my brother asked to read it, he traded with me. “You’re right,” he explained, “I did get your fortune cookie.”

Anyways, that was my Friday.