Yesterday I was walking through the produce section at Sam’s Club. I had decided to not change out of my pajama pants when I woke up that day. So, it felt like I was gliding more so than walking as I maneuvered my way around the display of pineapples and towards the meat coolers. Walking in public in your pajamas is extremely relaxing yet it also induces a small tinge of anxiety. Because you know people are looking at you and thinking you’re either a hot mess or its pajama day somewhere. Looking back, maybe the fact that I was in PJ pants allowed for what happened next. Perhaps being in pajama pants made me even more approachable. Perhaps the PJ pants are what got me noticed in the first place.
Pushing Evie in the abnormally large shopping cart, I headed towards the meat coolers and, for a brief second, I made eye contact with a woman who was standing about 10 feet in front of me, parked near the 3-foot-long salmon planks. Let’s call her Carol. Carol was talking to a man who I assumed she knew based on their interaction. In our brief locking of eyes, Carol stared me in the face and said, “Mary!”
Not a question that she might know me. No hesitation that I may not be Mary. Carol was certain I was this person. But my name’s not Mary.
Carol starts to come in for a hug and begins to explain to the man how she knows me. I immediately begin to shrink back. This shit is way out of my comfort zone. As she reaches over to give me a squeeze, I try to interject and explain that I’m not, in fact, Mary. But as I go to say no, she locks eyes with me again and it’s then that I see it. A sheer look of desperation. Like someone throwing you the rope to their boat that is quickly drifting out to sea.
It was that look that made me pause, half accept that hug and go with it for a minute even though my introverted nature was quietly screaming at me to ABORT, ABORT. Carol quickly hugs my shoulder and explains to the man that we see each other in carline all the time since our kids go to school together. I start to think, maybe she thinks she knows me? Like maybe we HAVE seen in each other in carline and made eye contact before? I know we never spoke. I’m pretty good with faces. But maybe in her mind we are friends because our cars have sat next to each other through that hell? Maybe she’s a little bit bonkers?
I stand there awkwardly clutching my excessively large shopping cart, still thinking she thinks I’m Mary. But then Carol gives me a quick nod and a tiny smile, and I realize – she’s pretending to know me. This woman is using me as a shield. A shield from the man standing next to me.
The man is happy to meet me, oblivious to the fact that I’m not who Carol says I am. He tells me that Carol is headed back to school to pick up her kid who’s sick. I play along and ask her what’s wrong. She waves it off and says it’s just a stomach thing. Carol then abruptly says goodbye to the man and indicates I should walk and talk with her as she moves away.
As we get out of earshot from the man, Carol immediately says “thank you.” I guess that man, whom she had no clue who he was, had been talking to her for about a half an hour near the 3-foot-long salmon planks and she had been trying unsuccessfully to get away. I don’t know how their conversation started but she had tried to end it multiple times before I came along. She even lied about a sick kid to see if he’d stop yapping and let her walk away.
Carol had been desperately looking around, trying to catch the eye of someone to rescue her. I don’t know if I’d have the balls to do the same thing. To pull in a stranger to save me from a situation like that. But I was kind of a hero that day. A socially awkward 40-year-old woman in PJ pants who made eye contact, took a hug from a stranger, and pretended to be Mary.
I love this.