Today nothing big is happening. I have things hanging over my head more than anything exciting. 🙂
But.
I did wander down to the wee little shoe-repair shop a few blocks from my office to pick up my boots.
They’re already three years old, but I have a love-hate relationship with shopping and if $20 means I can wear these another winter and I don’t need to shop for a new pair: done and done.
The shop feels tiny. You know how barber shops feel long? This shop feels long, too. But, if it were a barber shop there would only be room for two of the chairs. There are three raised seats against one wall, for people to sit while their shoes are polished. No one was sitting in them today, but a tiny woman with skin the color of tea-with-cream was there with spray bottles and rubber gloves and brushes to clean the boots others had left.
Across the other wall are three chairs, the kind that stack, for customers to sit. One of the chairs was taken by a young man listening to an ipod, wearing athletic shoes, an athletic jacket and an athletic hat. I found the athletic shoes detail strange, since we were in a shoe repair shop. But…maybe they were his back-up pair until his nice pair were fixed. He was in the chair closest to the door.
Next to him, on a chair, was a snoozing black-and-tan cat.
On the final chair was a backpack.
My boots weren’t finished, so the young man moved his backpack so I could sit down.
And then the cat stre-e-e-e-e-tched out her paw to tap the young man and then turned around and tapped my leg with her paw so he and I took turns petting her as we waited.
And then the door opened again. An old white man came in. He was wearing one of those fur-Russian-hats on his head. He walked in and literally hissed at the cat and pointed his finger straight at her and said, “Get down! Get down!”
But the cat just stared at him. He raised his hand to hit her, so I said, “Oh, don’t worry, you can sit here, I’ll just move her.”
So I picked her up softly and transferred her to my lap so he would have an open seat.
But I guess he wasn’t interested in sitting, because he just stood until the owner, a soft-spoken African man behind the counter said, “Hello, David.”
And then the man thrust out his pelvis (whaaaaaat?) and was like, “I am OBAMA KILPATRICK.”
Wherein I glanced at the young-man-on-the-ipod who looked at me, shrugged, and went back to his ipod.
Then Obama-Kilpatrick-David started talking to me. He was wearing the Russian hat, but also a jacket. Under the jacket was a bright and colorful Christmas sweater and it looked like he was wearing cowboy boots. His accent was super thick. But, I deal with all kinds of people all day long, so I just utilized my profesh smile and my signature, “how about that” as I was trying to pick out words that I understood.
Then I noticed he was holding an open beer bottle.
The lady polishing shoes interrupted him.
“Hey,” she said, “what did I tell you about cussing out my customers?”
And then I realized he was f-bombing me up and down.
For real.
Only, it sounded like “tack” with his accent so that’s why I was so confused. I mean, we were in a shoe repair store so, like, I could see “tack” being a part of the convo. (The “mothah tacker” did confuse me, to be honest).
But he kind of just continued, OK??
And then the soft-spoken guy behind the counter was like, “David, you need to take your negativity outside.”
But he just kind of pelvis-thrusted again, and kept telling me things.
The words I’m fairly certain existed in the conversation were, “bus,” “gun,” “war.” Oh, and the f-bombz. Past that: not really sure.
Then he gave another pelvic salute to the room in general and left.
And then my boots were ready so I took then back to my office.
The end.
P.S. Submitted to the boolean blog. Maaaaaybe I’ll be featured!
I never said my life wasn’t weird.