Yesterday, I went to the grocery store. Somewhere between the blueberries and the eggplant, I noticed a woman pushing one of those grocery carts for kids. They are usually red and resemble a train or an auto. I turned my attention back to the mushrooms, wondering when stores started offering so many types of fungi, there are trumpets, oysters, shitaki, and on and on when I heard the woman say to her little girl. "Darcy, just spread your legs for your brother."
What? Was this a lost episode of the Beverly Hillbillies? Darcy, it seems, was hogging the seat and in order for her brother, who looked to be two years older, to sit, he needed to do so between her legs.
I don't know. I'm not an expert on raising kids. I'm barely an expert on raising Cain. Call me old fashion, call me a prude, but I just don't think a mama should ever say these words to her daughter: spread your legs for big brother."
Friends of mine, all 2.5 of them, have said, hey, stop blaming Vegas for things. But seriously, I've lived in San Francisco. I've lived in Marin. I've lived in Jackson, Mississippi, and Vicksburg, Mississippi. I've heard two kinds of people say something about "spread your legs" to someone: Gynecologist, and my ex-boyfriends (one who was also a gynaecologist).
People do odd stuff here, they say odd things. The other day, at Starbucks, I heard a woman say to her little boy, "Mommy is getting her breasts done tomorrow and just you wait, it will be an all new me." What?????? The little boy looked confused, alarmed, and scared, but he got over it when Mommy added, "and you're getting a pumpkin latte!"
At work this week, a manager brought his pet scorpion to the office. Yeah. You heard me. Bernice, our HR manager, locked herself in her office and turned off the lights. She is used to putting up with crazy stuff: employee meltdowns, feuds between bosses. We even had one employee who spoke to the dead. We never had any one who brought dangerous pets to work.
Security had to go to this manager and say, "hey, get the scorpion out of here."
I asked both Bernice and the security team, with a straight face, if I could bring in my pet rattlesnake. Fangs. "He's sweet, really," I said. They just looked at me with that, "Why hasn't she quit yet," look that I get A LOT at work.
The thing is, part of me would like to bring in my cat, Sammy Davis, Jr. He'd be a great asset to our team. He would give encouragement to people (he licks faces, thinking he's a dog), he would make them laugh (you should see him roll around on the carpet) and he could probably do my job when I was out.
So what is it with this town? From Mama's telling their daughters to spread their legs, or telling their sons about their upcoming breasts job, to someone bringing in their scorpion as if it is show and tell, I just have to ask, What? As Ricky Bobby would say in Talladega Nights, "THAT just happened!"
