Supermarket happenings.

The other week I was at the supermarket at like 8pm at night on a weekday after an exceptionally long and tiring day of deskwork, and after I came back to my cart from the aisle with Ramen noodles, I noticed that it wasn't my cart parked in the usual unobtrusive spot at the head of the aisle, but rather some other cart full of tightly-tied produce bags.

I looked around, and some (Asian-American) woman spoke to me helpfully and was like, "I don't think that's your cart," and I suddenly noticed this (older) (Mexican) guy behind the bakery counter eying me suspiciously, like I was on drugs or something.

At that, I went back to the produce area where I had just come from, and found my cart sitting over by some oranges that were on sale, so I picked it up, and then I wheeled it back over to where I had been, the (older) (Mexican) guy continuing to stare at me suspiciously.

I was so embarrassed and a little freaked, so I fled further down the store to do my shopping there, only realizing later that I never returned the other cart to where it had been.  I decided not to go back, though, since that would just make things worse somehow, I thought.

I also realized that I must have taken the wrong cart b/c of a problem w/oranges: the sale oranges by where I parked my cart were green and not that good, so I had walked over to some other oranges to get a bag of them, and when I had gone back to where my cart was by the sale oranges, I must have taken the wrong cart at that point, just taking some other cart also parked over by the sale oranges.

Just as I was going to checkout, too, I noticed my oranges weren't in my cart's basket, and I realized I must have left them in the other people's cart.

So, I got more oranges, checked out, and fled the store, embarrassed.

I wonder if this happens to other people.  I haven't heard of it, but I'm guessing it does. 

I wonder what the etiquette is in this situation?

2 classroom events: Hope, Waterbottle.

The other week in the gen-ed class that I'm TAing for 2 things happened:

1) After praising the school's research library, the prof told the students, "Hopefully, one day you will miss it," which I found genuine and sweet.

2) This petite, always made-up (Asian-American) student from Texas had her bright yellow Nalgene bottle out on the table, a big bottle 8" high and the circumference of a McDonald's hamburger, and I noticed that she had a medicine sticker "For rectal use only" put on it.

. . .

Sightreading Pope Francis’s tweets.

The other week I had a Latin lesson w/my one very good Latin student, and I printed out some recent tweets of Pope Francis so we could kick off the lesson by sightreading a few of them.

One of the most recent ones was something like –

Ostium tui cordis pulsat dominus.  Suspendistine de bulla titulum “Nolo turbari”?

(The Lord is knocking on the door of your heart.  Have you hung a sign from the doorknob, “I don’t want to be disturbed”?)

- and since I always make fun of the classist and perhaps even corrupt president of our university during lessons, I was like, “And do you know what President [- - -] would say to that?”

“‘Yes’?”, my one good Latin was like.

“No!”, I was like, “He would say, ‘Of course I haven’t, I had someone do it for me’!”.

And then my one good Latin student impersonated the president and was like, “‘And I made them take the stairs.’”

. . .

For our next class, I’m having him revise the university’s (Latin) motto into 2-3 parody versions reflecting the current president’s values.

Woman at a busstop.

During the very cold weather recently, I was waiting for a bus to take me to the nearby subway stop, and this one (early 40s) (black) woman had her shoulders huddled up against the cold and no hat on and we started talking about public transportation, and she told me how the other week when it had been cold too there was this younger (white) couple and a random car pulled up and they were going north and they offered her a ride.

“That’s nice,” I was like.  “Did you take it?”

“Hell no,” she was like, “I watch the news, people go missing, I don’t have time for that.” 

Tben, she added, “You think I’m that stupid?  I don’t have time for that, they could have gotten me and drove me off and done something, hell, I’m just trying to go to work, I don't have time for that.”

Then, I asked her what the driver looked like and she said she didn’t get a good look at him, but his voice sounded old, but she still didn’t want to risk it.

I then asked her what the young couple were like, and she was like, “I could’ve taken her and fucked her up, but him, that’s a problem.”

. . .

Update from my one straight friend into BDSM.

My one straight friend who’s into BDSM was back in town for the 1^st time since he got a job out in the Bay Area.

We caught up downtown over beers, and I made sure that we popped into this one place with a great craftbeer selection, since he’s into that, and then since it’s topical and I love the saying, I made to share with him what a Belgian friend had said that Belgians say about a good beer, “It’s like an angel pissing in your mouth.”

“Hey, that’s so funny,” he was like.  “You know, the scene is so much more spiritual out there, if you want to call it that...”, and then he transitioned into telling me about what the BDSM scene was like in the Bay Area.

He never really explained that transition to me, though.

Illegible shorthand for blogposts.

More illegible shorthand for a blogpost –

nostalgia 4latin us vs mex drugwar warehouse temps fastfood

. . .

I wonder what that was about.

Freshman from my class.

A (jock-y) (white) (female) freshman who’s originally from Southern California and who I taught last term was swiping cards when people left the gym, and she bubbled up when she saw me, and was like, “[my name]!”

Then, she started telling me how class was going, and how they were reading this short story writer Veronica Woolf and people liked her, but she found her hard.

“You heard of her?”, she was like.

”Do you mean ‘Virginia Woolf’?”, I was like.

”Oh yeah, that’s it,” she was like.