| General Fiction posted April 27, 2019 | Chapters: |
2 3 -4- 5... 
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Coping with The New Normal.
A chapter in the book A Fly on the Wall
On Not Understanding
by Rachelle Allen
| Background Everyday musings on people and situations I encounter. |
10/12/16
I have finally reached the point in life I always dreaded: I no longer understand commonplace things. No doubt it's because "in my day" (oh, someone please shoot me now for even uttering that phrase!) they weren't commonplace.
Worse, I'm suddenly hearing --and (gasp) acknowledging the accuracy of-- my parents' words on those frequent occasions when I would question their inability to recognize commonplace things. "Someday," they said --and I remember smirking at the ominous tone they used-- "you'll understand." Oh please, I thought. Don't make me laugh.
For them, it was hippies: young men and women who wore revealing psychedelic tops, peace sign necklaces, bell bottom jeans, and reveled in how long and unwashed their hair was.
"I don't get it," my mother would say. "How is that a good thing?"
"Don't ask me," my father would answer, and then, eyebrows furrowed and faces strained, they'd silently dunk cookies into their coffee for the next twenty minutes.
These meditations would usually end with, "Yeah, I still don't get it."
"Me, either."
They were such a source of embarrassment to my up-and-coming coolness, these two. I just could not fathom what was so hard to understand.
But now it is five decades later, and I am in my car in the parking lot of the grocery store I've patronized since the 80's. And at least ten times in the last two minutes I've heard my own voice murmur, "I don't get it." Because I'm pretty positive my cashier, whose name tag read 'LaShondra,' was a guy.
It's true she was uncommonly tall and had broad shoulders and substantial forearms, but her shirt was flimsy enough for me to register a well-satisfied B-cup bra. She was also sporting make-up, a fluffy, bona fide Girly-Girl hairstyle, and bright purple Lee press-on nails. She even had metallic ballet flats on her (okay, rather oversized) feet. It wasn't until she handed me my bagged purchases and noticed my orangey-red stilettos that I no longer felt among the cogent.
In a voice only slightly higher than Darth Vader's, she exclaimed, "Oooh! I loooooove your shoes!!"
Through my parents' furrowed eyebrows and pained facial expression, I offered her a trembling and, I'm sure, mostly inaudible, "Thank you."
I have no cookies in this bag next to me on the seat, and there is no coffee to dunk them in anyway. So I fear it may be hours before I can be resigned enough to say, "I still don't get it" and move on toward finding my way back home.
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