Ouch!
Monday, June 12, 2006
A couple of weeks ago, I popped into Jewel-Osco for some taco dip. Yes, I am going through a phase. No, I don't see it ending anytime soon. Back to the story.

My grocery store is a bit bigger than a typical city grocery, but much smaller than a suburban grocery (for definitions and other funny, see this post by the ever-fabulous Alice at Finslippy). When you make it through the lane of homeless folks soliciting money/food/drugs, you enter the store and take a hard right past the super fatty baked goodies and straight into cheese. Sometimes I get distracted by the many varieties of potato salad, which are stored in the same cold case as some of the higher end cheeses.

I sure do love me some tater salad. You think you know, but you have no idea.

As I cut across the "other" side of the aisle to reach the taco dip, I realize my path will inevitably run me straight into a loony-bin-quality-muttering-to-himself-dressed-in-smelly-and-VERY-dirty-clothing...let's just call him "interesting man with the matted beard and mustache."

I can be hypersensitive to folks like that, because I feel they deserve my respect in public just as much as the next person I encounter. I also feel like perhaps they really aren't treated as people most times because of the way they look. Which is sad. As I took my next steps, I purposely continued on my path directly towards IMMM (Interesting Matted Mustache Man) so that it wouldn't appear as if I was trying to dodge him.

If he was normal in appearance, I probably wouldn't have even noticed him and bumped into him. I'm klutzy and oblivious like that - see my logic? This is why staging an almost-accidental collision makes ME feel better about not judging him in public. Yes, my internal logic is that bizarre and unusual.


As I got nearer to him (and ironically, to the taco dip) I made a polite and last-minute swerve to avoid bumping into him.

I must have startled him with my quick motion, because his left hand flew up and he slapped my face.

Hard.

Slapped.

By a maybe-homeless-but-definitely-dirty man.

In the cheese aisle at the grocery.

Let me repeat that for dramatic emphasis: SLAPPED BY A STRANGER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GROCERY STORE. SLAPPED ON THE FACE.

Welcome to my life. Thank you, that is all.