Thanks Covid! Now I'm the weirdo who cusses.

 

WARNING: THE LANGUAGE IN TODAY'S BLOG IS A LITTLE SALTY. READERS UNDER THE AGE OF 14 SHOULD PROCEED ONLY WITH PARENTAL PERMISSION.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

So, with Covid and sheltering in place and wearing masks and social distancing, I do believe the impossible has happened:  I've become even more weird to my fellow man and woman.

Those of you who know me, or who read this blog more than once a year know that I have a bit of a different outlook on life and that colors my interactions with those around me. I have a problem with my internal edit button, I tend to be very sarcastic, and, in my gentle, conservative, church going circle of friends I'm considered a hilarious, eccentric outlaw.

And then Covid happened and, well, stuff got a little worse.

It was bound to happen, I guess. I mean, I already work at home, so my contact with my coworkers and the general public is by phone or email.  Thanks to Covid, I don't get to exercise my social chat muscle much on people like wait staff or cashiers because, between the masks and the plexiglass walls that have popped up all over the place...well...it's hard to hear anyone say anything.  Plus, you know, actually eating in a restaurant is frowned upon.  (Or forbidden, depending on the state in which you live.)

My biggest form of contact with people who are not in my house is at the pharmacy, which is where, I believe, my newest bout of weirdness began.  See, with the masks and plexiglass, we now have to speak at louder volumes. And since it's the pharmacy, we're sharing fairly private details of ourselves...at louder volumes. As a society, we've just sort of all agreed this is okay to shout at pharmacy techs and pharmacists, regardless of how personal the information might be.  We pinky swear we won't share that any info we hear in line with anyone else.  Especially about that rash cream, man in front of me last week. I'm not sharing any of the stuff you shouted at the tech with anyone.  Who needs those images in their head?

But here's the thing:  Once you're used to shouting, and oversharing, and then not talking to people unless you're shouting or oversharing, well, something happens in your brain.  At least it did in mine.

Which is how, on Tuesday at choir practice, I made a complete normal situation really, really weird.  

So I'm at choir practice...something I haven't done in a while (I'd like to blame Covid for my poor attendance at choir practice, but we all know I'm not a great practice attender.) and I'm sitting in my normal spot, except hubby told me a couple weeks ago that we've gotten a new alto who was sitting in my spot because, well, I wasn't there.  

And I'm sitting in my chair, chatting with the lady next to me when the new lady comes in and she's got a little kiddo with her.  And next to me is an open chair, which I use for my coat and water bottle, phone purse...basically I've claimed the chair next to me as also mine because it's all about me.

So the new alto sees me in what she'd been using as her spot and she's cool, she and the little one sit in the front row and start chatting with the front row altos.

Now, a NORMAL person whose brain had not been damaged by all the Covid stuff would have just leaned over and said, "Hi, I'm Sarah, welcome to this choir, good to meet you."  Or something along those lines. Not me. 

So the new lady sat down in the front row with her young kiddo and instead of leaning over and introducing myself, I look at Sandreen, a woman I've known for the better part of three decades and mouthed to her "is this the new woman?"

And Sandreen says, "Yes."

And then I don't lean over, nope, I just look square at the back of the new woman's head and I say in a voice that's way too loud, "HI! I'M SARAH!"

And the lady startles, turns and says,  in a completely normal adult voice, "Hi I'm......"

(I may have mentioned I'm really terrible with names.  Her name might be Stacey or Stashia or Stanislaw.  I will forever be calling her "new alto with kid.")

And here's where I really go off the rails.  I then say, again, in a really loud voice:  I KNOW YOU WERE SITTING HERE LAST TIME, AND I''M SITTING HERE NOW BUT IF YOU WANT TO SIT HERE I CAN MOVE TO THE FRONT ROW AND I CAN MOVE ALL MY STUFF AND YOU AND YOUR LITTLE ONE, HI LITTLE ONE, CAN SIT HERE IT'S NO BIG DEAL.

Now, New Alto with Kid looks at me, and she looks at Sandreen  and she looks back at me and says, "no, we're fine. Right here. We're fine."

"BUT I KNOW YOU WERE...WELL OKAY. I DON'T WANT TO MAKE IT WEIRD EVEN THOUGH I'VE MADE IT WEIRD NOW!  BUT WELCOME!"

Yeah...

Oh and did I mention that before this little lapse of normalcy, Sandreen's husband, a man who has sat in my front yard during this Covid stuff and enjoyed a nice socially distanced beer with hubby after a long day of work here and there the past couple months...he walked past my chair and said, "Hey, Sarah. Good to see you."  And he smiled.

And I said, "Why?  What do you know? What have you heard?"

And he says, "Can't I just say hello and smile?"

And I say, "I'm not sure."

Seriously, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

Oh and something you should probably know about me and the deterioration that is my general self these days:

I come from a very conservative, church type upbringing. I know all the "Thou Shalts" and "Thou Shalt Nots."  Back in college and even beyond that, I was considered sort of an edgy girl (yeah, I know) because I would could do fun things with words (a double entre anyone?) and I wasn't above making a blue joke here and there and peppering my language with a little salt.  Even as a grown up, many of my church friends think I'm hilarious and outrageous because "I tell it like it is" and I "have a unique perspective on things."

Let me tell you. This Covid thing has unleashed some kind of beast.  Well, at least in my house.

There are a couple words I do not care for.  I'm not going to spell them out here, but one of them begins with an F.  My kids, darling adults that they are, love to try and get either hubby or me to spew an F word now and again.  (Long live the memory of the F-bomb Thanksgiving. Hubby may never live that one down.)  Apparently, however, the kids don't have to work on me anymore...nope, APPARENTLY the language cloud over my head has gotten so blue that HUBBY had to ask to me to PLEASE STOP USING THAT WORD!

So there's that!

And, I also realized this fun fact this week:  Remember "That 70's Show?"  Sure, we all do. Well, I know I was never cool enough to be one of the kids. Not even Fez, poor dear Fez.  But I knew, I KNEW I was definitely one of the parents. You bet. I was Kitty Foreman. The fun loving, cookie baking, wine drinking, lard laughing mom who just wanted everyone to be happy and peaceful.

Turns out, Thanks to Covid, I'm not Kitty anymore.

Nope. I'm officially Red Foreman.  

Why?  

Because the words DUMB and ASS come out of my mouth, oh, I don't know, like 700 times a day. 

What I'm saying is that Covid affects us all in different ways. Me, I used to be a funny Sunday School teacher who could get kids interested in reading the Bible by teaching the lessons from the "SPICIER" stories in there.  Now, I'm a loud mouthed weirdo who yells at unsuspecting altos, calls everyone a dumb ass, and makes her husband uncomfortable with her potty mouth.

I want to be loving, patient, funny Kitty Foreman again. I want to love my fellow man and woman and find funny pictures of baby goats and not sit there and listen to this person bark about wearing masks and that person barking about not wearing masks and everything on TV talking about Covid (Seriously, "Grey's Anatomy?"  You think people want to see your season premier mid November after everything else we've slogged through with Covid and terrible weather all over and murder hornets and the election ...you think we want an entire storyline dedicated to more COVID?  REALLY?  Where are the explosions and the brain transplants and the many, many, many, many love scenes in the on call room?  Where's all that?)  

I really want to be happy and loving and joyful enjoy TV shows that aren't "The Great British Baking Show."

Hmmmm, maybe I am Kitty after all!

Have a super weekend all, and hey, since I probably won't be blogging much since November is National Novel Writing Month and I've actually taken a week off my day job next week to try and finish the first draft of my new novel: DEAL WITH A DEVIL  for those of you in the US, happy Thanksgiving, and for the rest of us, Happy Holidays, let's finish strong with peace and hope for better times.

And I know some of you evil people out there are really, really hoping I stay this awkward.  Yeah, I know you are...you mean dumb asses!  LOL

Could "Change of Life" mean standing in line is now entertaining?

It is a well known fact that I hate waiting in line.  It is also a well known fact that I always seem to wait in line behind someone who is making a gigantic deal out of nothing and holding up the line with complete nonsense, which then triggers my rage button.

I'm pretty sure this menopause thing...which I'll call chang-o from now on (for Change of Life) has changed my attitude about standing in line behind dumb dumbs. Listen to two stories from the last few days and see what you think:

Story #1.

I got in line at my local Meijer grocery store  (I tend to go there because it's way less crowded than Woodman's and generally has enough live cashiers to deal with the people in the store.)  There was no one ahead of me, but the cashier was scanning items.  I though maybe she was training or checking prices or something. She finished scanning the items ahead of mine. Mine were loaded on the belt.  I was, in terms of grocery check out, at the point of no return.

That's when she looked at me and said, "It's going to be a while."

Oh crap.

While I appreciated her honesty, no one likes to hear that, especially when they have frozen zucchini noodles on the belt.  (That's another blog.)

But still, I was curious.  What situation had I walked into?

"He's getting cash and she's getting a cake," the cashier said as if reading my thoughts.

Now I was really curious. Who would plan their lives so poorly that they have to get cash and one more item after they've put their stuff on the belt?  And who would possibly expect the world to stop long enough for them to get those things?

I got my answer a moment later when the oldest man in the world walked up to the cashier.

He had a wad of cash in his hand. The cashier told him the total.  "That's without the cake," she added.

"Is that with the cake?"  He asked.

"No. She hasn't brought the cake yet."

"So where's the cake?"

The cashier blinks, her brain realizing she has to adjust to now speak to an older man who is very deaf.  "SHE HASN'T BROUGHT IT HERE YET!"

But the man isn't listening. he's got his back turned to her.  He's getting his coin purse out of his back pocket. Now, the cashier and I believe he's getting exact change, since he had to go get cash.

Nope.

He pulled out a credit card and handed it to her. He stuffed his cash back into the coin purse.

the cashier ran the card and handed it back to him. At this moment the wife rolls up. And by "Rolls up" I mean she's in one of those scooter things stores provide.  In her front basket she's got a "cake."  It's actually a fluff dessert, the type that's layered whip topping/pie filling/whip topping. There might be cake in there...but I doubt it. Very pretty, very tempting.  Believe me, I've wanted to eat one for years.

Now, The Oldest Man is four steps away from the bagging area.  Roller Girl hands the cake to the cashier, who scans it and says, "That's six dollars even."

Oldest Man shuffles back, and takes the cake.

Roller Girl has not been paying attention to this transaction.  She's been adjusting her blouse or something.  When she finally looked up, she asked, "Did he get the cake?"

"Yes," Says cashier, "He has the cake."

Whereupon Roller Girl starts to wheel away from the cashier.  It takes a moment for the cashier to realize that Roller Girl thinks Oldest Man paid for the cake and she's about to leave without paying.

"No, no!"  yells cashier.  "He HAS the cake. You still have to PAY for the cake."

Roller Girl stops her ride, sighs heavily, and then backs up....beep....beep...beep.  SHE pulls out six dollars in cash.  Cashier takes it and then Roller Girl rolls away.

Cashier just shook her head and thanked me for waiting. I thanked her for the great theater.

That's when I realized standing in line was not automatically pushing my rage button.

Which brings me to story #2.

After church on Sunday we stopped at Kohls.  The good one, in Muskego. The two stores in Waukesha are terrible.  Besides, we've been going to church in Muskego...so it really works out.  (For me.)

On this trip, all I had to do was return an Amazon item that Peaches bought and didn't like.  Hubby dropped me at the door because we didn't intend to shop and he didn't care to stand in line with me.

 There was one person in line ahead of me.  SCORE!  I figured this transaction should take me three minutes, tops.

The person ahead of me went to Kathy, one of two women working the returns counter.  Meanwhile, I got Ashely.  As I set my item on the counter the phone rang. Ashley stared at it as if it were a foreign sound to her. (She was younger...it might have been.)  After it ran four or five times (something that does push my rage buttons immediately...answer the phone!)  she picked it up.  She mumbled a bit for a moment then put the phone to her chest and said, "Kathy....Kathy....Kathy...."

Kathy finally looked up and Ashely asked, "Is there a bigger store than this around here?"

The woman behind me said, "There's nothing in Muskego other than this store."

Kathy said, "No there aren't any big box stores in Muskego other than us."

All three of us looked at each other, sharing the one thought, "What a weird question to call about."

Ashley returned to the phone and mumbled some more.  Then she put the phone to her chest again.  "Kathy....Kathy....Kathy...."

Kathy finally looked up again.  Ashley said, "This woman wants to know if there's a bigger Kohls around here.  I'm not from around here, I don't know.  Maybe like Wau keh sha?"

Yeah, Ashley not's from around here.  She didn't pronounce Wau KEE sha correctly.  So why is she answering the phone?

That's when the growing line of women behind me started shouting out locations of other kohls. The first thing we all did was say, "Don't go to Waukesha, those stores are terrible!"

Ashley listened to the cacophony of store locations and then stared at me like a deer in the headlights.

"124th and North Ave in Brookfield," I said with great authority.  That's the biggest store I know.  Also, that's a store that's already got their holiday decorations up even as we speak.  They're like the anchor store for the area.

Ashely, however, not being from around here, mumbles, "Ummmm, so 124th and north Brookfield ave?"

Because that's what I said.

Apparently the woman ( oh yeah, it's a woman, no doubt) on the phone wasn't happy with that answer because she kept Ashley on the phone for another two minutes before Ashely put the phone to her chest and said, "Kathy....Kathy....Kathy.....which Kohls has a bigger shoe selection than we do?"

It was hubby who pointed out, when I related the store to him later, that the caller was probably standing in this store's shoe department at that moment.

Further proof that this was a woman.

"You have the best shoe selection of any of the kohls' I've been in," I tell Ashley because, let's face it, the customer Kathy is trying to help is getting pretty annoyed.

Ashley relays this message and after another two minutes, she hangs up. She thanks me for waiting and then reaches for the Amazon returns scanner. Which apparently is not working....

"Kathy....Kathy...Kathy...."

It took a solid fifteen minutes to return the item. Normally this would have sent me into a hot flash inducing  rant.  But nope, I related the story to Hubby with mirth.

So I ask you...does this mean that the Chang-O has not only changed my feminine punctuation, but also my rage issues?  Will waiting in line be fun now?  I mean....I used to want to punch people and howl.

Now, I don't.

At leas not the last two times.  Let's see what happens the next time I'm at the pharmacy....