Fight in the Grocery Store: Part 2

So, my hair is naturally strawberry blonde.  I’ve thought many times how lucky I am that it wasn’t all red because I can be feisty enough as it is!

This story is about my strangest trip to the grocery store, but it starts in an unexpected place: Over five years ago, I dated a man who I thought was wonderful, amazing...the best person ever.  He was a cowboy who broke horses for a living and would go herd cattle through the treacherous mountains.  He was a great boyfriend until I discovered a catch; he was married.  Embarrassing as it is, it took me an entire month to break up with the guy.  I just refused to believe he’d lied to me…and his wife…and well, everyone except his brothers.

After that, I obtained a superpower; I could spot a married man a mile away.  My friends were impressed by how accurate I became.  They even did some investigating and confirmed that I’d been right.

“I just don’t know how you do it,” my friend, Kara, said.

“Well, for starters there’s this weird confidence about them.  The don’t mind getting turned down because they’ll ‘get some’ whether it’s from you or their wife.”

She paled.  “You’re serious.”

“Of course I’m serious!”

Later that day, I shopped at the grocery store, and stood looking at various flavors of Doritos when a gorgeous man came up to me.

“You like Doritos?  I like Doritos!” Fabio said to me.  “What are the odds?”

I just stared at him.  The man had a tan line where his wedding ring should have been!  “99-percent of Americans like Doritos!  That doesn’t make me your flippin’ soulmate.” I said, then grabbed the closest bag to me, and marched to the front of the store.

As I stood waiting to check out, the man found me in line.  “Hey, I have somethin’ to say to you.”
“Yes?” I glared at him with all the hatred I could muster.

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to approach a girl – who you think is beautiful – and try to strike up a conversation?  I’ve been going through a terrible time and I finally got the guts to say ‘hello’ to someone because my counselor has been encouraging me to.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just raised a brow.  Did “Fabio” – with those deep eyes and that perfect skin – expect me to believe HE had trouble approaching women?  “Well, better luck next time,” I said and turned away. 

“Elisa,” Kara said later,  “you should feel terrible.  That poor man probably just got divorced or something.”

“And what if he did?  It’s a rough world out here.  I’m just easing him into it.  And I call b.s. on his story.  A man who looks like that...if he’s single, there’s something wrong with this world.”

“You call that ‘easing’ someone into it?  Maybe his wife died, or cheated on him with their even better looking butler.”

“Lay off the romance novels for two seconds!” I laughed.

So, even though this was years ago, part of me still feels terrible.  I do wonder if “Fabio” was suffering some tragic loss.  But there’s another part of me that still thinks he was married! 
So, despite how weird things currently are at the grocery stores in Idaho, with the silence and (some places with) plastic barriers, the partially barren shelves, and that half the people are wearing masks; it’s still not as weird as when I almost made a grown man cry over some Doritos.

The only people I like hitting on me are old men because at least they’re entertaining!  If they tried to pick someone up (over a bag of chips), they’d have something much better to say than “you like Doritos!”