Pseudo Professional Opinion
It might be that my hearing stinks or I’m just not paying attention, but I often miss what people say, and that look of annoyance they give me when I ask them to repeat things is often more than I can bear. My coping mechanism is to react to anything I can’t hear with a nod, a smile, and an “uh huh.” I figure this works roughly fifty percent of the time.
Jane is the floor supervisor at Stop and Shop. She is intensely loyal, but rough around the edges. It’s like she’s got this internal trip wire, and you never know what will set her off. For example, just last week, she was talking to me about my parents.
“Your parents crack me up,” she told me.
“They’re pretty cute with each other,” I replied.
“I love the way they get into my line and bicker about giving me exact change,” she said. “Your mother insists on going through her wallet and your father is always, like, “hurry up, Dee Dee.” But I tell him relax, don’t rush her.”
“She has a tendency to get rattled.”
“Yeah, I can see that. But seriously, if anyone standing behind them in line got impatient, I’d fucking rip their heads off. I love your parents.”
Yesterday, I was in Jane’s line. Apparently she’d thrown a Mexican theme party the night before and after a half-dozen margaritas managed to cut her hand while opening a can of refried beans. She was still wearing a makeshift tourniquet. After telling me the gory details, she said something I couldn’t quite make out and looked at me expectantly. “Right?”
I nodded and smiled. “Uh huh.”
“I thought so!” she whooped. “Here. Take a look.” Thrusting her hand under my nose and pushing the gauze aside, she revealed a gaping, oozing gash. I started to feel queasy. “Are you all right?” she asked. “ I thought this would be no big deal, you being a nurse and all.”
So that was what her earlier mumbling had been about! She’d asked me if I was a nurse! By now it was too late and too embarrassing to disabuse her of that notion so I just played along.
“Do you think I need stitches?” she asked.
“No, I think it’ll be okay.”
“That’s a relief,” she said. “Some asshole customer told me if I didn’t get to the ER soon I could bleed out.”
“Sounds like an alarmist,” I said, nervously eyeing the growing red stain on her bandage.
“Probably just worried about a lawsuit,” she shrugged. “Typical doctor.”
Now, there’s a time and place for the truth, but the time had passed, and the place was not a town like ours, blessed with two Stop and Shops. “Good luck with that,” I told her, giving her a cheerful wave as I rolled my cart out the door.