The Cheese Lady

I once worked for a small women's clothing company called Pookie and Sebastian. The oweners, apparently named their business after their two dogs. I was just a salesgirl and not a very good one at that. One day, a woman with bright orange hair and a ragged coat came in. At first I thought she might be homeless but she had brand new shopping bags with her. I tried to avoid her but we were required to greet every customer we came across no matter what; so I had to offer her help. She was grumbling about needing to buy her neice a gift.

"What do you buy a model? My neice is a model!" she said, rather agressively, in my opinion.

I showed her some scarves- always a good choice when you don't know the recipent's size. "Nawh, Nawh! What do you get for a model?! I don't know! Jesus!", was her response to my suggestions.

But before I could show her some of our jewelry, she wipped out a large block of orange cheddar cheese- it had to have been at least a pound. I'm not sure where she was concelaing the cheese- perhaps her coat? In any case I was so stunned that I could think of nothing to say for a full minute. This revire was finally broken when I realized that she was asking me for something.

"You got a pen?" she asked.

Without taking my eyes off the cheese I said, "WHAT?"

"I need a pen to open this cheese."

"We don't allow eating in the store." (I was glad to be able to make such a concreate statement.)

She looked at me with complete and utter exasperation.

"I don't want to EAT it!! I just wanna OPEN it!!"

I thought about this and figured I'd give her sicssors instead of a pen. Though, I did pause and think to myself, "am I really going to give this obvious mental patient a sharp object?" I decided she seemed like the kind of person I didn't want having a complete meltdown in front of me. So I handed her the sicssors and after opening the block of cheese, she left.

I only worked for Pookie and Sebastian for three months. But that, by far, was the best story I got from that place.

Children's Books I Love

So here's the list of children's books (mostly picture books but not all) I love, in no order: (except for the first, it's actually my #1 favorite)

One Monster After Another
Runaway Bunny
George and Martha
Bread and Jam for Frances
The Funny Thing
Millions and Millions of Cats
Mrs. Ticklefeather and her Puffin Paul
The Monster at the End of This Book
Courdoury
Good Night Gorilla
Horton Hatches the Egg
Where the Wild Things Are
My Father's Dragon
Marshmellow
A Day at the Zoo
Harry the Dirty Dog
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
The Story of Ferdinand
Goodnight Moon
Calandar Dogs
Oh, The Places You'll Go
Ira Sleeps Over
No Roses for Harry
Five Chinese Brothers
Katy No Pockets
Little Bear
Curious George
Blueberries for Sal
Make Way for Ducklings
Tootle
The Little Engine that Could
The Sailor Dog


I think there are a ton more, but these are all I could think of today.

Books I Love

For want of something interesting to write, here is a list of some books I've read and love. (In no order)

1984
Brave New World
Pride and Prejudice
Oryx and Crake
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Lord of the Flies
East of Eden
Grapes of Wrath
The Sun Also Rises
A Spot of Bother
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
Dune
Watership Down
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Call of the Wild
Starship Troopers
The Cider House Rules
The Hobbit
A Confederacy of Dunces
Handling Sin
To Kill a Mockingbird
Hitty: Her First 100 years
ShoGun
The Life of Pi
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (all)




That's all I can think of right now... I guess I could have put in all the authors, but I don't think anyone besided me is really reading this, so it doesn't matter. Maybe next I'll do lists of movies, children's books and music.

Le Cockroach et Rue du Oak

My very first cockroach encounter occurred while I was watching TV around midnight back in 1993. I was in my first apartment and I was alone and slightly prone to hysterics.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement and sat up to get a better look. Previously in my life, the only bug problem I had encountered were ants in my Parent's kitchen the summer before. What I found in my kitchen was what I would now refer to as a 'medium' sized cockroach. At the time I would have told you it was enormous but what did I know? This was pre NYC. But at the time it was my first roach and I panicked.

It was too late to call anyone and although I had been ready for bed, I was now wide awake. I didn't want to go lie down in my room because what if the roach came and got me there? What if, God forbid, it made a nest in my hair!! (There was no Discovery channel back then) I figured it was only a few more hours till daylight and then I could call my Mom. What she was supposed to do escapes me now, but it seemed like a logical plan at the time. Logical meaning totally bat-shit crazy. My official visit to crazy town began a few hours of TV and cigarettes later when I began to worry that the cockroaches were coming after me. And to get to me they might crawl up the back of the sofa! So, logically, I decided the only safe place was the coffee table. No toes or fingers could go over the edges and I had to keep spinning around every few minutes to check my "borders". My deal with myself was that I could not call Mom until 6 AM. I thought that was a good time because my little brother was still in high school and she always got up to get us up when I lived at home. Little did I know that she only got up that early to make sure I got up and my brother was more reliable in the waking up and staying awake department. So after what seemed like an eternity, 6 AM finally rolled around and as I stood on the table (I long ago abandoned sitting as being too risky) clutching my phone, I called my Mother. The conversation went (approximately) as follows:

Mom: Hello?

Sarah: Mom?

Mom: Sarah, it's 6 o'clock in the morning!

Sarah: I thought you'd be up.

Mom: I am now.

Sarah: Oh Mom! (starts to cry)

Mom: WHAT?! WHAT HAPPENED?

Sarah: (crying) There's.... there's a......

Mom: Get a hold of yourself, take a deep breath.

Sarah: Oh Mom! There's a cockroach in my kitchen and I couldn't sleep all night because it might make nests in my hair and I couldn't sit on the sofa because they were gonna climb up the back and get me so I'm standing on the coffee table and I don't know what to do!!! (crying again)

Mom: (long silent pause).....................That's it. I'm taking you to a mental institution.

Sarah: Mom! NO! Please!

Mom: Is that what you want? I think it's a good idea.

Sarah: Please Mom! I don't wanna go to a mental institution!

Mom: I'm sick and tired of this from you Sarah. It's enough already! If you're going to be nuts than you belong with the other nuts.

Sarah: I'm sorry! Please! I don't know what to do!

Mom: Have you tried cleaning? How about that?

Sarah: (sniffling) Okay.


And so I cleaned the apartment and then slept for a very, very long time. Regaining my sanity, (and I suspect, sobering up) I called my Mom again and apologized. But she was right: I never saw another cockroach there again.

Ditch the Kids at the Food Court, We're Going Gourmet!

During a trip to Washington D.C. for a cousin's Bat Mitzvah, my parents, grandmother, brother and I went to a local mall to get out of the rain. We did a little shopping and after a time my father asked Aaron and I if we were hungry. We replied, "Yes! Let's eat!" So he took us over to the food court and gave us some cash. Mom told us to get whatever we wanted. We both choose Chinese food (why, I cannot say) and got in line. After paying for the food and thinking the "adults" are getting their lunches elsewhere, Dad yells, FROM ACROSS THE HALL, "We'll meet up with you later! We're going to the Nordstrom Cafe! Call me on my cell phone when you are done!"

And then they LEFT.

We were stunned- they duped us into eating the cheap, crappy food and then made a hasty exit to the good restaurant without us. Why not pull us out of the line and say, "We don't like any of the options here- why don't we all go to the Nordstrom Cafe and have lunch together?"

No.

We were ditched by our parents and our grandmother. Who, along with my Mother, wasn't even in sight when my father yelled across the hall to alert us to their plan. We were convinced that if it had been up to the women, they would have left us without a word! No two children felt more like Hansel and Gretel that day in that mall than we did. To add insult to injury, the food was some of the WORST slop imaginable. We couldn't even eat it and ended up going hungry for the rest of the day. Poor Sarah and Aaron. Boo-hoo for us.

Mowing the Lawn for Esthetic Reasons....

There's a 24 hour diner in my neighborhood that I once found myself sitting in late one night having a cup of coffee and a cookie and listening to two of the most inane conversations I've ever heard in my life. In the booth next to mine were two youngish girls. The first one, Christine Wilson ( I know her name because her friend kept yelling, "Christine Wilson! Get off the phone!"), was on the phone with her head leaning against the window as if this would help her get further away from her friend who was yelling at her. She was talking to some guy on the other line and telling him that she wants to "move back there" and asking him if he smells. Then after getting what I can only assume was the answer she was looking for, she tells this guy, " I mow the lawn but only a little and only for esthetics reasons." I almost choked on my cookie. I was a good 6 feet from this girl, maybe more, and I could hear that clear as a bell. Then her friend gets a call and starts talking to whomever called her about hair plugs and asking if the new hair piece is working out.

What is wrong with people? Don't they realize that their conversations are not private? Why are they sitting together to share a meal if they are just going to sit across from each other and talk on their phones? And not even to each other? I hate cell phones- they turn normal people into rude, selfish assholes.

The Moaner Down The Hall

In my first apartment in New York, I lived with a friend from France named Laurence. For our first New Year's Eve together we went out, had a good time and went to bed around 3 AM. At about 5 AM I woke up to go to the bathroom and Laurence was up and totally freaked out. She told me that some guy was yelling for help and that it had woken her up. I was still half asleep, so naturally I assumed that she was talking about the sound coming from outside her window. But as I went to her room he started yelling and moaning (not in a "I'm having sex and letting the whole building know" way but in a "I'm in pain and disoriented" way) again and I realized it was coming from outside the apartment in the hall. I opened our door and looked down the hall- he was still moaning and yelling so I crept out and walked down the hall and peeked around the corner. The guy was moaning and yelling "Help me!" slowly in a deep guttural voice. I thought someone was in the apartment with him and was possibly hurting him, so I decided that calling 911 was the only logical course of action.

The cops showed up pretty quick for New Year's Eve. They banged on the guy's door and told him to open up but he wouldn't. They talked to him for a while through the door (we were around the corner eavesdropping) and after some time, convinced him that when they said they'd break the door down, they weren't joking. We heard them ask him what was going on and if he was alone. We didn't hear what he was saying, but the cops kept telling him he had to be quiet and go to sleep and that he was disturbing the neighbors. I guess he was giving them a hard time because they started threatening to take him to Bellveue (the local NYC state mental hospital- totally medieval and scary). They told him they'd take him if they had to come back that night. When the cops came back to us, they told us that the guy was alone but just extremely drunk and not in any danger. We were relieved.

Later, when we would see this guy in passing, neither of us could look him in the eye or even say hello. We were afraid he knew it was us who called the cops on him. He even seemed embarrassed when he saw us. He was a nice enough guy and after some time I got over my nervousness and started chatting with him. I am now convinced that he probably doesn't even remember that night.

What's for Dinner Tonight?

One day my cousin Joshua was walking down the street in his neighborhood on the UES (that Upper East Side to you non-New Yorkers) and he soon found that he was walking next to a crazy homeless guy. This one was ranting and raving total nonsense and Joshua did what all New Yorkers do, he ignored him. But as they both came to a corner and stopped, the cazy guy turns to Joshua and in a moment of lucidity, says, "You know what we're having for dinner tonight?!......Pussy!"

And with that, he crossed the street and was gone.