It's a Gift

I have a gift.

It is a rare and reasonably unique gift.

It is an unfortunate gift.

I wish I had gifts like some of my friends have. The gift of always knowing the right thing to say. The gift of spectacular, side splitting wit. The gift of music. The gift of organization. The gift of being able to do any physical activity well. The gift to create something brilliant and extraordinary...be it a screenplay, a book, a song, art, a child...

Me? I have a gift for crazy. Some people bring out the best in others; I bring out the crazy.

This gift manifests in two primary ways. First, it is the random stranger who sees me and sees an invisible sign on my back reading "No boundaries, bring it on!" It might be the creeper old man at a museum who trails me and my nannykids, trying to show us the stack of photos he took of Thomas the Tank Engine at a recent "Day Out with Thomas" event. It might be the older woman who starts in with how much she doesn't like her husband now that he's retired. It might be the lady behind me in line at Gymboree who tells me all about her unborn twins who died in utero six months ago. It might be the person who sits down next to me in a cafeteria and opens up a conversation by telling me how her stepfather used to come into her room at night. It might be a person I just met who asks me to throw her a birthday party and invite all my friends...who don't know her. It might be an innocent comment I make (such as a recent one about the nutritional values in a peanut butter sandwich) that triggers the crazy into a furious frenzy of argument which so riles them against me as a person that they have to block me on facebook in order to cope with my existence.

True stories, all.

And I don't mind the personal trauma stories from people I know. In fact, I am deeply honored when someone chooses to share such things with me, or when they turn to me for support or comfort. It is more than a little unnerving to be out in public, though, minding my own business, and to have a total stranger approach me with private, intimate life details. While I'd like to stop and comfort them all, I can't.


This gift for crazy also manifests in the form of customer service people. It doesn't seem to matter how polite, calm, reasonable I am. If there's a crazy person waiting to "help", that's the one I'll get. A few weeks ago it was the bartender who refused to serve me (or even hand me my bill) because I wasn't thin and pretty enough. The only way I got any kind of service was for one of my gorgeous friends to place the order for me.

This week, it was the sales associate at a superstore retailer.

I just had to pick up a few easy things. Diet Coke, toilet paper, balloons, and string. The first three were easy to find but the string left me stumped. I could have just wandered the store, aisle after aisle, to find it. Doing so would have caused me to be very very late to pick up the Twincesses and the Little Litigator from preschool and kindergarten. So, I did the normal thing: I asked for help.

It should have gone like this:


Me: Excuse me, where might I find string?

Sales Associate: String? Oh, on the back wall in hardware.

Me: Thank you so much!

SA: You're welcome, have a great day!


That is not how it went down. It should have gone down that way. In a normal world, it would have gone down that way. As we know, *my* world doesn't go according to normal, so this is how it played out:

Me: Excuse me, where might I find string?

SA: String?

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Me: Yes. String. Like...twine?

SA: (blank stare)

Me: Do you carry string?

SA: (completely baffled) What do you need string for?


Okay, does it really matter? Are there that many kinds of twine like string that would be in that many different departments of the store? Does my intended use make a difference in whether or not I am allowed to purchase the string? If I say "It's for a kindergarten science experiment" (the truth) will I get faster service than if I say "It's so I can tie up small children and see how long it takes them to gnaw free" (not the truth)?

Me: I just need string...string like twine.

SA: But like, for what?

Me: For a project.

SA: (knowingly) ohhhhh. Okay. I don't know where that is.


If you don't know where it is, then why did you need to know what it was for??



Me: Is there someone who WOULD know?

SA: um, probably? I know where everything in the store is though.




Which begs the question...

Me: So, then, where is the string?

SA: I'm going to have to ask. Do you really need it?



*blink* No, I just asked for it to test you, just for kicks and giggles. Once you tell me where it is, I'm going to walk in the opposite direction and buy hairbows instead. Of COURSE I really need it!



Me: Yes. I really do.

SA: (heaving sigh) I guess I can call for help

Me: That would be great, thank you.

SA: (muttering angrily) Although, I do know where everything is in this store. I've never had anyone ask for STRING before. What a weird thing to need. Nobody ever asks for that. String.



I had to fight the urge to ask for bungee cords, duct tape, blindfolds, and bacon.



SA: (on the phone) Yeah, there's this lady here and she needs (sideways glance at me) STRING. Do we even have that? Oh. We do. Okay. (hangs up phone, stares at me expectantly)

Me: So...the string is...where?

SA: On the wall.

Me: Which wall would that be?

SA: (exasperated with me at this point) On. The. Back. Wall. Near hardware. You have to actually go and look for it. You have to walk over there. GO. Walk over there. Go down this aisle, look at the back wall, and look for where it says "HARDWARE". Then, go to the BACK WALL. Find your STRING.



Because, obviously, I was in the wrong for asking. I mean, who the hell goes into a store and asks a customer service person for actual help? That's some kind of entitlement based crazy on my part, for sure!


If I'd had more time, at this point I might have had to mess with her, just to make a point. "Wait, the front wall?" "Did you say it was in auto supplies?" "Gosh, that's far away, can you just go get it for me while I wait here?" "Is it the flavored kind of string?" I might even have had to go look for it, failed to find it, and returned to her for more "help."


That might have set her off even more, though, and since clearly asking a simple question was a trigger I thought it wise not to push my luck.


I might hunt her down tomorrow, though, and ask her about that duct tape.