OH LORD- Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

 I wish I had a camera in my bedroom.

Get your mind out of the gutter! We covered my vague attempt at a porn career in New Orleans many posts here back, so it's not about me and extremely blonde Susan. This is much more innocent than that, though it does wind up with a woman being quite pleased. 

The time change has messed me up again. I don't know why we do that twice a year. The worst one is the Spring switch (now) where we scoot ahead an hour for some dumb reason. I nap nearly every afternoon because I'm retired and I only get like six hours of sleep at night and I stay up kinda late because, why not? Thus, I get up kinda early. So, to get my constitutionally mandated eight hours, I try to pick up two in the afternoon. I rarely have trouble going to sleep, but the struggle is real in getting that eight in a row like most people. Many people? I don't know. So today my nap was kinda late by this past Saturday's standards, but I did that trick people do at time changes where you tell yourself, "It's REALLY 4:00 pm- NOT 5:00 pm. I figured I might sneak an hour in because- again- what difference does it make? I'm retired, single and responsible to no one. I pretty much make my own schedule. I only really know my cousins in town, and we have an unwritten rule about not dropping in on each other or phoning, when texting first is oh-so-much more civilized. No phone calls either. The phone is for texts from them and telemarketers to be ignored. Waste of money, but the constitution says you must have a cell phone. 

I went out after lunch to Aldi's to get supplies. I also had to go to the fancy grocery store to get beer and bananas and some meat- stuff that Aldi's isn't big on, selection wise. This town is not a food desert. There are now three serious grocery stores all in a row, including a Walmart Super Store. I save enough at Aldi's to splurge at the fancy store. It's not really "fancy' so much as it is more expensive and more like a real grocery store than the other two. When I was checking out, the cute, young clerk asked if I wanted my meat in a separate bag, and I said that was fine. She went on to explain under her breath, that a lot of customers ask her to do that after she has already bagged their groceries and that clearly upsets her. To which I replied, "Oh, I wouldn't do you like that". 

The look on her face told me that is odd phrasing here in the Midwest (where I'm actually from) but it is something I heard and said on a daily basis from everyone when I lived in Tennessee. Her eyes froze when I said it. I don't know this for a fact, but I had to wonder all of a sudden if "do you" wasn't heard in a sexual context, or worse, in a Lifetime TV murder movie one. It was certainly not meant in either! Anyway, I recovered with more normal, Midwestern conversational tones about how I knew dealing with customers could be a trial and we completed the transaction- I think- without her thinking I was some old man masher/killer. I'm not so old that I can talk in innuendo to younger women, and I hope I never do that. 

I'm a product of my environments and I'm not sure what my accent is heard as now. For years people told me I sounded like Clint Eastwood. I lived in New Orleans for a couple years, can't for the life of me do a New Orleans accent now, but some locals thought I was local. Same in Memphis. I tend to blend. My late sister, Kate, said it was a year before she could understand me when I came back north! I have no idea what I sound like now. Maybe nobody does. 

Back to nap time. I have a wireless doorbell because I live on the second floor here and someone soft knocking might go unnoticed with the TV on and whatever. For some dumb reason I plugged it in in the bedroom. It's got like 50 'rings' built into it and the one I clicked on was some very festive Jewish tune. It's not Havanagila, but some other Jewish tune that I can't spell either. To hear it- loud as fuck- when you just entered dreamland, is VERY disorientating! This is why I wished there had been a camera. I leapt out of bed, saying "WHAT THE FUCK??!!" I looked left, right, left and right again. "Is that the fucking phone?? Where is it??!! No- it's the fucking doorbell!! Why??!! Where is it??!!" A camera would have been fucking hilarious. 

So, I go down the stairs. Mind you, I'm in a t-shirt and boxer briefs for whoever rings my doorbell. Well, unless I've got pants on. I've always been like this whenever I lived alone. My house, right? This time it was The Gilmore Girl daughter. A week or two ago it had been Mother Gilmore Girl. They don't know the rules and frankly, I don't want them to. They are both very nice, but a little- mentally disheveled, shall we say? They talk about their cats a lot. Gilmore Girl Jr suffers from depression. Her mom is just old. I'm the man of this house here, so if there's a problem I can fix, I want them to know I'm available to help out. I had mistakenly bought a pack of menthol cigarettes some time ago, and today I remembered to leave them for the Gilmore Girl Jr. on her steps. She wanted to acknowledge receiving them and to thank me. Disheveled myself at that time, I engaged in her small talk and covered myself with the door slightly askew. I wished I was awake and more lucid, but I doubt she cared. It was just good to see her happy.