Tags
books, John Irving, literature, retail, Stark Raving Red, wine, writing
One of the gorgeous things about working in the utterly mundane world of retail is the people you meet. Take, for instance, the old woman who approached me late one Saturday evening to tell me about her favorite serial killers. She was carrying a Norwegian advertisement book. How do I know it was Norwegian? I don’t, but it had Euro symbols all over it and the models were pale and blonde. I figured it was a safe assumption. She came to my cashwrap, laid the magazine on the counter, pointed to the attractive girl on the cover and queried, “Don’t you think she has a brother?”
I had expected a question about sweaters, or where the ladies room could be found. I had no answer for this particular inquiry. Apparently that didn’t bother her because she continued with, “Yeah. Yeah, her brother is that airline pilot. The one who killed all those women.”
“Excuse me?” By which I mean PLEASE go bother someone else Crazy Lady.
“Yes. I quite liked him,” She quickly flipped to the back page which featured cologne bottles shaped like limbless-man torsos. “And the man who makes these, he cuts women up. Into pieces. Like my mother. Mmhmm. Just like that fabric mill in Connecticut. I have a shirt covered with the newspaper clippings of all the serial killers in Oregon. They’re terrible stories. Terrible. I wear it to remind me of who I can trust.”
She gave me a long, piercing look. “The more you know…” She said, nodded, and walked away. Just away, out of the store, out into the mall without ever looking at a single piece of merchandise. Why was she in the store at all? Why did she stop at my counter, one of five on that floor? The world may never know, but I will always carry that moment of surreal unreality with me.
It had a literary feel to it; like something out of a John Irving novel. I could well imagine his iconic character Garp running into a woman like this. We would then have to sit through six pages of introspective reflections on sanity, but you get my point. Sometimes real life feels like book life. Which is one of things this blog is about. My fiance claims that instead of facing my problems I read books. And he’s right; I’m a guilty stress reader. Well why not? In his film Shadowlands, William Nicholson wrote, “We read to know we’re not alone”. Books make me feel less alone, even when I’m not actively reading. Literature lives and occasionally breathes out characters into the real world. As a struggling writer trying to get a career off the ground, I find these wrinkles in my everyday life invaluable and, ironically, they keep me sane.
Tonight’s wine pairing is Stark Raving Red, an excellent and fairly inexpensive red blend that a friend introduced to me. So sit back, sip back, let go of the confines of reality, and write something.
~J