Saturday, April 01, 2006

I'm ready for my close up, Mr. Deville.

I'm a people watcher. Always have been. Although I detest mall shopping, I thoroughly enjoy mall sitting and watching. You may have seen me in a mall near you. I'm the blonde chick in camo sitting atop the yellow kid's choo-choo watching you through binoculars and trying to accurately recreate your mating call so you'll look my way.

But I digress. And as I am eating peanut M&M's at the moment, I also digest. I digress and digest both at the same time. Let's see you try and do that one good time.

Anywho... people fascinate me. Especially weird people. My daughter is forever getting on to me when I am in close proximity to weird people because I become so engrossed in watching them, I forget that I am staring. Typically she gives me the old, "Mother! Stop staring!", and I can always tell by her tone I'm about a second away from getting flicked on the end of my nose.

Today at my garage sale, it was weird people central. My stuff was like chum to them. (Which I guess doesn't say too much for the kinds of things I own, huh?) I know I spent the better part of the day staring to the point of drooling, but as Kitten was not there to thump me, I couldn't help myself. I was gawking like no other.

Who could blame me?

There was the guy with crazy eyes about whom I've written before. He showed up in his homemade truck and proceeded to spend no less than five minutes lecturing me about not recycling my price stickers. "I tell Sarah to hang on to them thangs and just put some plastic...but clear... tape on them and they're as good as new. I don't want to say for sure, but if I had to guess I would say she's collected about a million of 'em." He bought a picture for .25 he said he had no room for and an old VHS of The Wedding Singer. Adam Sandler is universally appealing to both the normal-eyed and crazy-eyed people of America.

There was also the world's shortest fifty-year-old woman. I've seen her before, too. Even though her legs would come about to my knee, her pants are always way too short. It drives me nuts trying to figure out why. I've also noticed she enjoys brightly colored socks that in no way compliment her high water pants. Come to think of it, maybe the socks are the purpose behind the pants. Maybe she totally digs them and wants to accent them at every available opportunity.

I was pretty nervous when I saw her coming today. At one of my garage sales past, she peed on herself for a reason that was not clear to me. She was looking at something on a table and just peed right where she stood. It wasn't like it was a little pee, so that maybe she didn't notice. It was a full on bathroom break. What's more, she saw a friend across my yard and practically skipped over to talk to her. Perhaps in addition to bladder control issues, her tiny legs are somehow desensitized to the feel of warm liquid.

A sweet young lady of about twenty or so showed up to check out my book collection. She was a large girl who had on tennis shoes, denim shorts with an elastic waist band, a blood donor t-shirt circa 2004 and huge fancy earrings that one might expect to see Joan Rivers wear to the Oscars. She found a book of fun facts that belonged to my son in 4th grade and proceeded to regale me with information on topics from blood cells to mucus production to how many Americans speak Spanish. On and on and page by page she went until I'm pretty sure she had read me the entire 25 cent book. I was glad when she left. I couldn't fake another "OOOOH. Now that I did not know."

Don't get me wrong. I was in my glory today, kids. But as I sat there watching and thinking about who these people were and what was waiting at home for them, I wondered whether anyone ever watches and wonders about me. Could it be that when I'm out and about in the world someone, somewhere is eyeballing me and trying to figure out why I'm so weird?

Nah. Couldn't be. I'm as normal as the driven snow. (That's a saying, right???) How 'bout, I am to weird as grits are to monkeys. (That's not right either is it?)

Alright. Go ahead and get your bino's.


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2 comments:

Tidewaterbound said...

Now that peeing woman I'd have nearly paid to watch. However, I couldn't be counted on not to erupt into a volcano of giggles.

LOL

Sherri said...

I'm not even kidding. She really did that. Rule #1 of coming to a garage sale held by the OCD Chick... do not urinate anywhere on my property.