Invisibility cloak

For the second time in the last two weeks, and the third time in my life, someone just hit me with their car. When I say "someone just hit me," I'm talking about "my leg" and not my car. I'm wondering if I'm invisible, which is difficult because 1.) I'm tall so I clear the average vehicle's bumper and 2.) my coat is made of day-glo hot pink faux fur. Don't you think if you looked in your rear view mirror, or God forbid actually turned around, and saw a big fuchsia muppet wearing glasses you'd take a second to hit the brakes?

Sometimes I wonder how people make it through the day. If they're not on the fast-track to committing vehicular manslaughter in a parking lot, they're generally just out to pick a fight. Prior to this incident, a woman yelled at me for having exactly 19 items in the "express" lane designated for 20 items or less. Last time I checked, 19 items are less than 20, but this still seemed to be a point of contention.

The woman in front of me loudly commented to the check-out lady, "I can't believe these people who get into this faster lane and have more than 20 items! They're sooooooo rude," as she glanced back to me. "I'm sure they go around wasting everybody's time all the time. They might as well have fifty items!!"

"I have 19," I told her. "Do you have something else that's bothering you today? Do you need a hug?" She gave me a dirty look as she stuffed her receipt in her purse. She turned to walk off in a brisk huff, but was again thwarted when her purse strap caught on the edge of the check-out counter and pulled her over backwards. My only fault was that I laughed as she tried to catch her balance.

Later as I got hit by a car in the parking lot, I thought it might have been this lady exacting her revenge on my positive attitude and ability to correctly count to 19. But it wasn't.

I finally got to my Jeep and was loading up my purchases when a stranger walked up to try and sell me a bag of tamales. First off, I don't like tamales so I would never get them anyway, but I do actually appreciate people who are out to make an honest buck. Still, here's a little word of advice: If you're going to peddle your dirty bag of tamales to strangers in a parking lot, you might not want to hit up folks leaving the grocery store. Chances are, if they wanted tamales, they'd grab a few pre-packaged, sanitary tamales from the freezer section. I believe these are the same tamale-buying people who feel opposed to contracting Legionnaires' disease or bacterial meningitis or scurvy or whatever you get from eating parking lot tamales.

I also believe I'd like to just stay home for the rest of the month.