working check-out

doing moonlighting last night as a grocery clerk, i saw a guy who i once went on a date with. i don't remember his name. i don't remember where we went. i do remember it was a daytime appointment and it had all the formality and awkwardness inherent in the word. (an assignation, on the other hand, how i long for one hundred of those). he was divorced. but divorced from a palestinian expat which he wore as liberal bona fides. and i've seen him around before but we never acknowledge one another, probably because there is a speckle of doubt that he is he and i am i. or me. anyhoo, there i was working the express line scanning his goods (quinoa, organic chicken breast, tofu sausage, that kind of 'i'm lost without my birks' shopping list). and he's with a gal. and she's shorter than i am and short-short hair and maybe she had a tattoo on her bicep, i can't remember. could this be the palestinian exwife turned beard? in my internal monologue i said, 'remember me? we went on a date once. it wasn't that fun, but still. how's the lucky or unlucky gal?' instead i gave him his receipt and tried my hardest at a seering stare.

'you and i, we know each other,' i decreed with my eyes. (if you've ever tried to decree something with your eyes, you know it's a rather private enterprise, along the lines of internal monologue.)

no bite. shorty caressed his arm as they waited to exit.

my next customer bounded up with her organic ginger, recycled t-p, probiotic beverages, for crissake.