No really. I'm Fine.

Somehow in the past few days I've had an internal surge of confidence and self esteem, because today I went jeans shopping. For just about any woman on the planet, jeans shopping is the most humiliating and disgraceful event they have to endure on a regular basis, besides the whole uterus seeping out of us every month thing. That, too, is disgraceful and totally not anywhere near "natural" or "beautiful" and neither is my waistline.

Regrettably, I had to buy jeans which means I had to go to a public place and cower under the weight of 40 pairs of jeans with size labels as big as apple pies stickered to them while standing in line to try them on and possibly - dear God possibly - finding one pair that fit. And lo and behold, Karma cashed me in today because I FOUND A PAIR THAT FIT and only on the 6th try! Joyfully I bounded from the dressing room and set for the cash register to buy my jeans and take them home, dip them in plaster and make a mold of them to keep for all eternity.

So. I'm walking out to the counter with my purse dangling from one arm with the jeans draped over the other and I'm trying to get my hooded sweatshirt back on, but the sleeve is all inside out. So I just keep walking and start shaking my hand into my shirt sleeve trying to get it to turn out. You know, the normal way you do when you're too lazy to stop whatever else you're doing to fold your sweatshirt sleeve back out the correct way and instead you just flop it up and down so the force of gravity somehow does the work for you.

All the sudden this sales lady comes over to me, puts her hand on my back and says gently, "If you're alone I can help you shop today. Just let me know if you need anything." I look at her and go, "Oh. Uhm, ok thank you."

And she looks back at me, totally startled, and says all flustered, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I...I thought...you were putting your sweater on that way, and I just thought...that you needed special assistance. I'm so sorry."

SHE.

THOUGHT.

I.

WAS.

RETARDED!! Not that there's anything wrong with that! But this has never happened to me before! I've been thought of as being many, many things in my lifetime, but retarded? Because of how I put my sweater on?!? You can't understand how embarrassed I was, for myself in this excruciating moment of being thought as mentally and physically handicapped and for this poor saleslady who just accused a customer trying to spend hard earned money in her store of needing "special assistance."

So what was I supposed to do? Go watch People's Court or something? I was there in the middle of a department store making my way to the cash register while this horribly embarrassed clerk practically jogged over to the cashier to inform her No, nothing's wrong with her, just treat her normally, don't stare, don't look at her arm, I don't know what happened to it. I get about three feet from the register and the cashier obviously can't keep her shit together and I can tell she's nervous, I can tell she thinks I'm semi-retarded, and she SHOUTS, "OVER HERE MA'AM! HERE! I CAN TAKE YOU HERE!"

Great. Now I'm retarded and deaf, thanks a lot. I go over to her and the sales clerk who first insulted me walks away briskly, and I say to the cashier, "Really, I'm ok." She doesn't make eye contact with me but stammers, "What? Oh, no, it's, here, uhm, can, how do you want to pay?" but in the same way that white people talk to black people when we don't want black people thinking we're racist even if we've done nothing to indicate we are.

"Uhm, so did you see that guy in the red shirt? He was kind of tall with a red shirt and had on jeans and he had dark hair--"
"Was he a white guy or a black guy?"
"What?? Oh, uhm, I have no idea, that's not something I would ever notice because I'm very open minded."

I realize this cashier is nervous, so I say, "No really, it was my sweater, I couldn't get it on, is all."
"What?! Oh, I didn't know, I mean, she didn't say--I MEAN, she said maybe you needed help but you don't..."
"I don't."
"I know."
"I'm not."
"I know. We know."

It's time for me to pay and the cashier turns the ATM keypad to face me as she tallies off my total, and I stare down at the blinking keys and scrolling numbers and suddenly I'm totally lost and have no idea what to press. I stall and look up at the cashier helpless, and she replies, "It's ok. I know you're not...retarded."