Hot Sauce and Cigarettes

Today's art is filled with total bullshit. Artists whine about how tortured they are, about how no one understands them. About how their work was created, crafted, out of this need to express their tortured little brains. Love stories today are bland and picturesque--filled with overly polite vampires and white-toothed lead singers. People wear their tragedies, addictions, mental disorders, like badges on the breast. The purpose of creating today has boiled down to preaching a message or breaking a mold.

But everyone knows that real genius is created on accident--Douglas Adams wrote comedic masterpiece while drunk in a field, Mary Shelley dreamed up Frankenstein on a rainy night during a boring party game, Lewis Carrol created beauty at the insistence of a young girl trying to pass some time, and J.K. Rowling penned words on the back of napkins in a cafe. True love isn't simple, not exotic--at best, it can be embarrassing. Your dream guy is probably your worst nightmare. The real nuts don't advertise. And our journey of self-discovery is sparked by the most mundane people and places.

I didn't really know this--I didn't even really know me, until, like my favorite character Alice--I jumped into a portal of funny happenings, witty sayings, twisted logic, and terrifying people.

My own journey through the looking glass began with a simple, awkward sound:

"Uhm."

This universal signal of 'question', crawling hesitantly out of my mouth to the first person passing.

"Yes?"

"I'm looking for Mrs. Brown?"

"Brown. Ah, yeah. In here."

The morning that particular September ninth was a crappy one. The sky and the ground and the line of cars moving at a sloth's pace next to me as I sped by on my bike dripped into a splendid array of greys, accented by the kind of rain that sucks the most--cold, tiny little droplets that sting into your eyes as you pedal and effectively ruin the hair you'd taken such a long time to straighten that morning.

Not the way to show up for a job interview.

But I was here (on time!), and that's what mattered.

The man--who was well on his way to old, it seemed--rang an obnoxious little bell to a door marked "Admin". No one opened it for him. He ended up resorting to tapping on a glass window like a kid trying to get the dead eyes of fish's attention. A woman looked up within the 'tank', pressing a phantom button and the door swung open with the mystery man's veiny hand. He gave me a meek smile and nod as I passed him. He had bug eyes and a balding head, and his teeth looked funny when he smiled. But I didn't mind. I just walked right up to the lady who'd let him--me--in, now pulling out a drawer of files. Her fingers walked over each file elegantly.

"Name." She said. I could already tell that everything she said was a command.

"Uh. Jones. Georgie Jones."

"Georgie..." She chanted softly, repeating it, until she plucked a clone little folder out. She didn't look like a Mrs. Brown. A Mrs. Brown is supposed to look sweet and motherly and maybe a bit plump--with rosy cheeks and a happy smile who makes all those lame jokes that you can't help but laugh at.

This woman looked too young--skinny as the rails on a train track, sharp and analytical green/grey eyes, auburn hair that was piled messily onto her head, as if she'd just gotten in from the rain. Her clothes were black and her skin very pale. Her features were sharp, her stare cold. Definitely not a Mrs. Brown.

Still, out of politeness as she threw my file at me I muttered a, "Thank you Mrs. Brown..."

She chirped, "That's Miss to you. Ms. Demeter. Mrs. Brown is sick today, she asked me to fill in since I have ...secretarial skills. Sit. I'll tell you what's wrong."

I blinked, taking a seat in front of the desk. I entered thinking I was going for a job interview, not getting schooled or giving psychiatric help.

Ms. Demeter was about to open her mouth, when a yelp sounded outside along with the crashing metal of grocery carts, followed by a loud and cackling laugh. I turned in my chair, befuddled. But when I turned back, Demeter's expression didn't match mine at all. She seemed to know what was happening, although she looked quite annoyed. She began to pace angrily to the door of the barricaded office.

"Excuse me a moment, hon." She smiled icily, muttering under her breath as she rolled her eyes, "Him again..."

I sat meekly, staring at everything and nothing so it looked like I wasn't completely lost. I tapped my leg compulsively--something I'd done ever since I could move. The walls of this store were a bright and sunny yellow. The floors were typical scuffed dirty-white tile. They made me nervous. I took a deep breath. I couldn't believe I was doing this. Moving out, living in a foreign town in the middle of some not-important country. Taking a job at a grocery store. But it was close to my friend's and my own apartment, and it was a good paying gig. So in that uncomfortable metal chair I sat, and for the few silent minutes I stayed.

The sturdy door behind me banged open, clicked shut.

"You nervous? You're tapping that leg like you're sending morse code."

"I do that. It's a ...habit."

Demeter shrugged, pocketed a peice of paper which I hadn't seen before, and took a look at the piles of forms I'd filled out weeks ago.

"This is wrong. I need your old address here. You switched from blue to black ink on page nine. I can't read that. Wrong. Wrong, wrong..."

Fix this.

Fix that.

Erase.

Scratch out.

Sign. Uh-huh. There. And there. No wait there.

Turn around three times on one leg touch your nose and sneeze while singing I'm a Little Teapot.

Not really.

It was an hour of rewritting, correcting, faxing, and the random signing of papers that could've given away my life. It didn't help that the woman didn't know the meaning of a single kind word. She just flicked each mistake at me on the edge of perfectly manicured nails, sighing impatiently when I didn't give a satisfactory answer or seem assertive enough.

Just when my hand began to cramp and I thought I would begin cussing this woman out from underneath my humble smile, she left and came back with some purple robe thing that was too big for me. I was a skinny and tall girl, and here this woman was thrusting a circus tent into my arms.

"You start tomorrow. Cashier. 11 am. Hurry up, I have a pedicure at four."

"But wait..." I began dumbly, "What about the inter--"

"Look: You're patient. You smile a lot. I gather you like money?"

We got up and she pushed me towards the sturdy door.

"Er. Yes."

"Well.. there you go! You're hired. You'll be a cashier, which means you'll go up to the costumer service window. Right over there? I'll be there. Or my boss."

"Your... boss?" I'd thought she was in charge.

"Yes. Mr. Reeves. He let you in."

Ah, the strange weedy looking man with the wrinkles and the sickening smile, the one who looked like he was slighty neurotic and probably a mobster?

My mind screamed three capital letters. W. T. F.

"Welcome to Thompson's Grocery, kid."

She pushed me out of the door and I just blinked, more confused now then when I entered. The door slammed and the yellow walls laughed cheerily at me.

I don't know why I took that job. All I know is, the day I took it was the day I found out grocery stores were just asylums in disguise, and that certain people were going to force me to realize my full potential, inspire my first work of art.

And lose my mind.

Oh, along with falling in love with a total dweeb.

But really, what's the difference?