Cool Strangers

Ok, so yesterday, Lisa decided we should go shopping in Longmont so she could buy fresh organic fruit and veggies.

Normally I try to avoid shopping with my wife. It can be dangerous.

But yesterday morning I had received a glowing telephone review of Free Radical from Claire’s good friend Doc Clarence –

Dr. Clarence Calls On Claire – The Wise Novelist

An Angel Named Clarence – The Wise Novelist

Claire The Mule Makes Doc Clarence’s Wall Of Fame – The Wise Novelist

I was on an adrenaline rush by the story finding unbridled approval by a scientist who is familiar with cloning and so I was willing to chance anything.

I didn’t know she was going to Whole Foods.

A truly wonderful store. Just not me.

Personally, WF is always a fish out of water experience for me. I always feel like I’m in a scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I mean, all of the people around me look perfectly human, but there’s something different about them. Maybe they are just too nice.

Since I usually wear one of my “You are enough.” sweatshirts when I go out and about, I can walk among these nice people without drawing a second look, as long as I don’t open my mouth. It’s like smearing yourself with blood and guts from the undead and walking among a horde of zombies.

Anyway, Lisa has a tendency of sending me off to wander alone when she shops so I don’t embarrass her with my totally unfiltered observational humor. There’s always a final warning of “don’t break anything, see you at the cashiers in a half hour.”

Not once has she ever cautioned me to be careful of strangers.

Truthfully, I just cannot shop with women. Men don’t compare items or prices. If we take something off a shelf, it goes into the basket. No second guessing. No going back to check out a similar item. No reading ingredients.

If it takes me more than sixty seconds to clear an aisle, check my pulse for I am surely dead.

If I say I’m going to the store for one item. I return home with one item.

Men are also visual and instinctive when we shop. We follow the same pattern through any store we enter. For example, when I shop at Walmart’s I start at the pet section, take care of the dogs, cats, birds and then wander past everything else without looking left or right until we get to the opposite end of the mega store where, working from the back to the front — so that the cart is heaviest just before checkout– we pick up milk, juice, butter cookies and crackers, spaghetti sauce and noodles, then water, coffee, frozen meals, bread, ice cream and finally fruits and veggies for the non-human creatures of Casa Claire.

On those rare days were Lisa and I enter a store together, it’s always best that we take separate baskets and then call each other when we are done. Otherwise, my heat seeking missile pace always causes her to forget something she desperately wanted. I pay dearly when that happens. PTSD.

So, yesterday I left Lisa in the fruits and veggies section and wandered around the store, smelling the wonderful scents from the organic everything and scanning the shelves in search of just one major commercial food brand that would never be served on Bobby Kennedy’s table at home that I could recognize. Not a one!

Then, I spotted a woman at a promotional stand wearing a blue sweatshirt with the words “For All Young Humans” stretched across its back.

I was intrigued by its direct marketing to young humans and felt safe approaching her because I am neither.

Her dyed wild and wavy hair (the identity of the pastel colors escaped me) gave her a slightly feral look, and as I approached she spotted me, which is unusual because I can usually approach women without detection. As soon as she said “Hi,” her accent provided a strange familiarity.

Dara is a New York transplant. Her family’s origin is Queens, the roots of her grandmother– although her parents moved to Vermont for a while. She still carries the Queens accent. Dara moved out west with her family during COVID and over the recent years turned some of her natural New York moxie into the entrepreneurial success of an all-natural gummy-based vitamin brand called Sam & Leo (which I believe is named after her children). While the marketing is towards clean teen vitamins, her gummies can be taken by everyone.

Always looking to help out another New Yawker wandering in the wilderness, I searched the store until I found Lisa and dragged her over to Dara’s stand, like Lassie dragging the sheriff back to Timmy in the well. I enjoy it when Lisa shouts “What is it, boy?” Since Lisa still has some humanity left in her, she sampled the product and purchased a couple of bags of gummies.

However, I never miss an opportunity to talk about my books, and before we left Dara had jotted down the information with a promise to check it out.

With any luck at all, Lisa can look forward to a healthier and more relaxed future. At least until we go shopping together.

So, good luck Dara (and Sam & Leo). And if anyone is looking for a great vitamin gummy for their teens, or themselves, check out Dara’s Sam & Leo Gummies, which can be ordered online: SAM+LEO Vegan Gummy Vitamins for Teens and Kids

Well, it’s Thursday, Friday’s handmaiden, so my fine, five readers just need to wrap up their first full work week of the new year and set their sights on an early escape from the office tomorrow morning.

Don’t forget to take your vitamins.

And no matter what else we get up to, let us make today a great one.