I‘m taking part in a 30-day writing experiment. The theme for me is “personal, not pretty.” See Kale & Cigarettes for details and the Facebook Group to read stories by other 500-words-ers.
Yesterday I asked a complete stranger to buy me a bagel.
On Tuesdays I don’t have childcare* and so I have to ignore the emails flooding in by the second and just try my hardest to be present with the girls all day. I am not going to lie; it’s nice to have an excuse to do that. But I always vacillate between staying home with them all day Flowers in the Attic–style or trying to get some errands done.
Unfortunately, I haven’t yet cracked the code of how to smoothly run errands with the girls in tow, so I usually spend a large part of the day flustered and frustrated. Today I decided to take them to the mall to buy jeans for myself. My impressive collection of size 29 and 30 jeans probably won’t fit anytime soon, and I’m getting tired of wearing leggings all the time.
Side note: Nordstroms doesn’t even sell jeans bigger than size 30, which is a little bit what the fuck if you ask me.
On the way to the mall, the girls fell asleep, naturally. Sometimes they will sleep for a long-ass time in the morning (but only if we’re in the car and I’m hoping to get some errands done) and I won’t wake them up to put them in the stroller, so I usually just end up driving around.
Today, I thought it would be a fun adventure to go to this bagel place in downtown SLC called The Bagel Project. It’s in a cute little brick building; they only sell bagels and juice. I love the simplicity and the fact (or perhaps illusion) that it’s a mom-and-pop and not just another mindless chain as run rampant around here.
I figured I would pull into their cute little lot, call them, and ask them to run me out a bagel. I even had cash ready. But when I got there, they wouldn’t answer the phone. I could see them in there, scurrying about and ignoring the phone.
I’ve worked in food service in this lifetime, and I know what a nightmare people can be. When I was 18 and working in bagel-type-places, if some lady in an SUV pulled up and asked me to be a lamb and run a bagel out to the car for her, I would have been like, “Nope.”
But I can’t get out of the car and leave the girls in it. And I am really hungry.
Eventually, it became apparent that they were never going to answer the phone. I thought about leaving a nasty message laced with lies about how I’m diabetic and stuck in my car and thanks to them, will probably have to go to the emergency room. That would not be beneath me. But instead, I took initiative.
“Excuse me?” I said to the first poor fellow who pulled up alongside me. “Will you buy me a bagel?”
He looked at me like, why me.
I waved a fiver at him. “I’ll buy your bagel, too! Just, I can’t leave my girls in the car, and I really want a bagel.” Part of my urgency to get a bagel, I have to admit, is that I’m trying not to eat bread right now, so when I come up with a good excuse to do so, I am keen to act on it.
I felt like a teenager trying to get a dude to buy her beer. But mister did eventually agree to buy me a bagel. I scarfed it down in the car sitting right there in the bagel place parking lot. I am racking up the classy points these days.
* If you know someone who is great with kids and available on Tuesdays, let me know!
