Whole Foods: A Christmas Story

On Saturday, December 23^rd, I had to brave Whole Foods in order to pick up our order for Christmas Eve dinner with the family.  You should know that, in no particular order:

• I dislike shopping
• I dislike new and/or unfamiliar places
• I dislike Whole Foods and the sensory overload it provides
• I dislike crowds
• I dislike people
• I dislike crowds of people when I'm forced to go shopping

Last year's run to Whole Foods around the same time for the same stuff ended up like this (per my FB feed):

 rain, traffic, Whole Foods and trying to keep my panic attack at least until I reach the car (complete with white knuckles, fingering my paper list to self-soothe, and talking to myself like the mentally ill person that I am), waiting, more traffic, more rain, getting lost/turned around, canceling my hair appointment last minute because I was still stuck on the highway with a trunk full of Christmas groceries and there was no way I'd make it on time (or close to on time), crying the rest of the way home (hello, panic attack), unpacking groceries and toys amidst dogs and cats.

So I knew what was in store (pun intended) for me.  Unlike last year, I knew better than to attempt to plan more than this shopping trip in one day.  Even when I used to have to go grocery shopping (is no longer my job), I would attempt to do nothing else so that I wasn't in any sort of hurry.

I remembered the way to Whole Foods, and the parking lot wasn't crazy.  I walked inside, and it wasn't crazy either.

Okay, this might not be so bad.

I had my list in hand to remind me what to get.  Even if I'm only going to Walgreens I have to have a list; otherwise, I'll end up tunnel-visioned, wandering up and down aisles, often forgetting what I came in for (and ending up with a bunch of other random shit).

I picked up the crab legs we ordered ✔
I wandered a bit looking for wine ✔

And what is that delicious smell tickling my nostrils?  It's the bakery.  I held off on heading that direction, knowing that our cake would be the last item I got before hitting the check-out.

I wandered several more aisles, often repeating myself, looking for various snacks and household items.

Finally, the bakery again.  I could still smell fresh bread baking and my stomach was growling.  I looked at the fresh breads available for purchase, wondering which one was making the smell I was smelling.  For a brief moment, I considered sniffing every type of loaf available...

I decided on a "French round" loaf.  Then I went search for something creamy and spreadable on this decadent bread.  I ended up with a creamy Gorgonzola (sold to me by the lady behind the counter wearing a Star Wars shirt, so I knew I was in good company).
I then picked up our cake ✔

And I headed to the check-out lines.

Oh, here's where all the people are!

No wonder the store didn't seem too crowded or crazy; everyone was waiting with their carts to check out.  I found a spot in the nearest line and proceeded to wait.  Back before the days of smartphones (and when I still had to do the grocery shopping), I would usually amuse myself with People Magazine or a tabloid or something (anything!) to read while waiting in line, soothing myself in my head that I was fine because I had no other place to be.

I took a deep breath and tried that plan for today, using my phone to amuse myself instead.  The Express line was moving along alright, but I am not one of those assholes who goes into that line with more than the listed number of allowed items.

And other lines picked up the pace a bit.
But not mine.

And the woman in front of me kept trying to make eye contact with me while she huffed or harrumphed -- y'know, like you do when trying for that "We're all in this together" attitude or "It's us versus them; aren't they the worst!" thing that happens sometimes in public.  "Mutual misery."
But I wasn't having it.

Yes, this particular checker was incredibly slow; there was no doubt about it.  But I was not in a hurry; I had nowhere else to be.  So I would either ignore her (the woman, not the checker) or smile blandly at her and then go back to my phone.

Harrumphing and rolling eyes isn't going to make the line move any faster.  And for that matter, the woman in front of me could have changed lines at any time.  I didn't.  I stayed, mentally patting myself on the back for leaving the other, faster lines for people who clearly had more important things to do.

At about the fourth or fifth harrumph, she did catch the eye of the older man behind me whose response was, "I just want to be home in time for Christmas" (it was the 23^rd).  Whatever.  I ignored them all (and probably spent 25-30 minutes just standing line).

After I checked out, I headed back out to the bright parking lot -- and could not remember at all where I had parked my car.

While I was wandering down the first aisle of cars, I heard, "Excuse me?  Can I ask you something?"  And I turned to find a young woman who had clearly been crying recently standing there.
"Sure," I say.

"Umm, we're from [a nearby small town] and we're living in a Wal-Mart parking lot and I'm just trying to get some food to eat and it's not going so well..."

Several thoughts occurred to me, almost simultaneously:

• Some of my friends prepare "care packs" for just this very thing (I haven't)
• Some friends know the names and numbers of shelters and outreaches and are prepared (I wasn't)
• Wow, begging in this area of town is very unusual
• I rarely carry cash
• I happen to be carrying cash right now, pure coincidence

I don't even know if she got to the part about asking for money, but I said, "Sure" and took the small wad of cash I (very coincidentally) had in my wallet, maybe $7 or $8, I honestly don't know and I didn't look.  I just handed it to her and she said, "Thank you" and "have a good rest of your day."

And then I was stuck still trying to find my car.  In the 5-10 minutes it took me to finally find my vehicle (Wow, I found a much better parking spot than I remembered!), I thought some other things like

• Maybe she was lying?
• Maybe I just gave her money for drugs?
• Should I have bought her a sandwich instead?
• Why was I not prepared?
• Maybe she's a just a good actress?
• I don't care.

And I didn't care about any of the above; it seemed like the right and convenient thing to do, so I did it.  And I eventually found my car.

And while putting the groceries into the trunk, the handle of one bag broke right off!

I caught the bottom of the bag with my cat-like reflexes before it hit the pavement -- it was the bag with 2 of my 4 bottles of wine it.  Thank you little baby Jesus!  It's a Christmas miracle.

After that, I made it home without incident and managed to unload groceries, also without incident.  After all of the above excitement, though, I decided I was going to do nothing but eat cheese and bread and wine for the rest of the day.

And I did.

I regret nothing.

P.S.  There is no moral to this story, no heartfelt holiday message.  It simply is what happened on December 23^rd, 2017.

The Good Ol' Days...of Parental Abandonment

And now an excerpt from my mom's holiday email:

Bet you didn't know I bought and then returned and got something else for you. Maybe even three times. Because I thought THAT thing would be the best thing. Once I even drove over to [a store] from [our duplex in a completely different area] to get in on the best price and while they still had one (whatever it was). Did I say it was 12:00 at night? This was the year stores started to be open 24 hours.  Fortunately, you were still sleeping when I got home.

Ahh, the good ol' days of the 1980s.  Sometimes I'm amazed my siblings and I survived at all.  But she was right; I did not know that.

The Miracle of Laundry (and Tiny Games)

One Christmas, we decided to go to the West Coast for the holiday.  And by "we," I mean my Unit and her family.  Five adults (me, my Unit, Unit's sister and brother-in-law, Unit's mother) and two small children (Unit's niece and nephew, aged 2 and 6 at the time) all sharing a small beach house on the Oregon coast.  If you're thinking "That sounds like a disaster," you're right; we now refer to it as "the worst Christmas ever" (and by "we" I really mean "me").

There were a lot of things that went wrong during that week, but this is not that story.  And there were a lot of things that stressed me out when all I wanted to do was sleep, eat, knit, and relax (having just closed my sixth show of the year literally days earlier and my first year and a half of grad school), but this is only partially that story.

During our week-long holiday/vacation/forced interactions, my sister-in-law kept doing laundry (among other things).  We were staying in a house, not a hotel, so we had laundry facilities and a full kitchen and other regular house-type things that we all had to share.  And it seemed like she was constantly doing laundry, particularly for her two children.

Now I know kids can through a lot of clothes during the day, especially infants.  But these weren't infants, so why was she constantly doing laundry?  And my stressed-out-on-vacation self was all, Who the fuck does laundry on vacation?  Did you not pack enough clothing for all six days?  Did you just bring dirty clothes with you?  Hey, I did that a time or two in college when going home for a holiday or break.

I did not and could not understand the rationale, especially as it seemed to be one of the many things stressing her out, which in turn, stressed everyone else out.

Now let's fast-forward to six years later -- to August, 2016, to be exact.  My Unit and I are just barely recovering from Treepocalypse 2016.  On August 2^nd, we moved into an actual house ("temporary housing" from our insurance company), after spending weeks in both her mom's one-bedroom house and a hotel room.  We walked into a new, larger house, completely furnished -- but none of the furniture (or linens or dishes or housewares or ANYTHING) was ours.  A week or so after that, we were able to get the first portion of our items from the storage company, including clothes and MY SHOES.

And somewhere in there, somewhere between moving into the house with my bags and suitcases from the hotel and getting boxes of items from the storage company, I started doing laundry.  The "temporary" house included a washer and dryer, on the main level no less!  No more walking up and down stairs into a possibly creepy basement for clean things.  So I washed nearly everything I could.  And dried it.  And I happily folded things and stored them neatly in our new (to us) temporary dressers and closets and drawers.

And it dawned on me:  I know why* she was doing laundry!  I finally understood.

Because when things are chaos, laundry is one thing I can control.  When things are chaos, if I can at least get my clothes clean and put away, that will make me feel grounded and at home, at little less "all over the place" and a whole lot less like I'm living out of a suitcase.  That one small thing is done and clean and fresh and "ready to start the day" (or week or month or whatever).  The entire house (literally or metaphorically) might be a mess, but my clothes are clean and in their proper place.
I could have agency over this one part of my life.

And I've come to realize it's also why I often play tiny stupid games on the computer (in the "time management" genre):  because it's one small thing I can control -- a thing I can control and often complete.  They provide a wee sense of accomplishment (as does clean laundry), even if the tiny game is ultimately useless. 

It only took six years, but I finally understood the miracle of laundry.

*Either that, or she really did not bring enough clothes for her kids -- fuck if I know.

Feminist Xmas Songs

A friend turned me onto the trend #FeministXmasSongs on Twitter.  Leonard is rarely on Twitter, though, so instead we posted several to Facebook over the Christmas holiday.  By request, I have compiled them here.  Please note, these are not in the original order posted, rather by popularity (using Facebook's oh-so-scientific system of "likes").

#10 "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town"

He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He doesn't respect the boundaries you've set,
So, girl, get a restraining order.
You don't owe him anything, no matter how many dates you've been on.

#9 "O Holy Night"

Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother --
And our sister!
Women can be slaves, too, y'know.
And in His name all oppression shall cease -- black lives matter!
But please leave your (straight) white (male) savior complex at home.

#8 "I Saw Mommy Kissin' Santa Claus"

I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus
Underneath the mistletoe last night
She didn't see me creep
Because I'm a creepy little kid
With an Oedipus complex.

#7 "Frosty the Snowman"

Frosty the Snowman
Was a jolly, happy soul
With a corncob pipe and a button nose
And two eyes made out of coal
Frosty the Snowperson
Is a gender neutral character
Because a pipe and coal doesn't make one a "man."

#6 "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"

God rest ye merry gentlemen --
Seriously?!??

#5 "Santa, Baby"

Santa baby, forgot to mention one little thing -- a ring.
I don't mean on the phone;
You can just text me
Because I know my worth isn't dependent upon the monetary value of "gifts."

#4 "Santa, Baby" again

Think of all the fun I've missed;
Think of all the fellas that I haven't kissed;
Because the patriarchy shames women who have a healthy sex life.
Next year I could be just as good,
Since we're only rewarding women who claim to be virgins.

#3 "Silver Bells"

City sidewalks, busy sidewalks.
Dressed in holiday style
In the air there's a feeling of Christmas
Children laughing,
People passing,
Meeting smile after smile
People smiling because they want to,
Not because someone insisted they do so.
It's just a smile, not an invitation for harassment, Mr. Street-Shopper!
My public person is not for you to comment upon.

#2 "Walking in a Winter Wonderland"

In the meadow we can build a snowman
And pretend that he is Parson Brown
He'll say, "Are you married?"
We'll say, "That's really none of your business; we're two consenting adults."

#1 (and Leonard's personal favorite) "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer"

Grandma got run over by a reindeer
Walking home from our house Christmas Eve
You can say there's no such thing as Santa
But as for me and Grandpa,
We know that Western literary tradition punishes women who show independence.

Honorable Mentions:

Several of Leonard's friends joined the movement as well.  Here are their contributions (reposted with permission).

Serena "In the Bleak Midwinter"

What can I give him? Poor as I am? anything I want because consent is like tea! Seriously, if someone said they didn't want tea, you wouldn't make em drink tea! Give me heart, if I want to! It's up to me!!! 

Liz "Little Drummer Boy"

Come they told me
Pa rum pum pum pum
A new-born king to see,
Or not, which is totally fine,
Because consent is important,
Especially when you're teaching
Kids that they have agency over
Their own bodies. And forcing them
To feign affection in order to avoid
Hurting someone's feeling is
Participating in rape culture.

Jamie "Carol of the Bells"

 Hark! How the bells, sweet silver bells
All seem to say, "Throw cares away."
Christmas is here, bringing good cheer or not, because it's ok to feel however you want to feel, you don't have to smile just to make others feel ok with you.
To young and old, meek and the bold, and also the middle aged because women don't have to be only young or old no mater what the Hollywood anti aging machine tells us about standards of beauty.
Ding, dong, ding, dong, that is their song.

Michael "Baby, It's Cold Outside"

 - I really can't stay...
- Baby it's cold outside--so bundle up and have a pleasant evening.
(End of Song.)

Tess "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"

 I know dashers and dancers and prancers and vixens and none of them deserve to be judged by what society says they should be!

Image compliments of University College London Union

P.S.  "Baby, It's Cold Outside" has received several requests.  I know there has already been a "Honest" video about it (which I haven't watched yet).  As it is a trifecta of date rape, guilt-trips, and slut-shaming, it deserves its own blog post (forthcoming).