Touch It

Do you remember a few months ago when a bald girl shook me down for loose change at the movies? Well, this story is also under that "why does this shit always happen to me?" category.

My friend RC and I stopped at the Publix on James Island last week on our way to Folly Beach for a long weekend. We needed the essentials, some organic milk, no-pulp orange juice, fortified with both calcium and vitamin D, and a little bit of fruit and veg to counteract all the crap junk food that would be making up the bulk of our weekend diet, just to help keep things moving along. We were looking around the produce department for some strawberries and pineapple when a man walked up to us. He was younger than both of us, and quite muscular. He had a very short haircut, almost a flat top, and was wearing a muscle shirt, circa 1983, which allowed us to see the various nondescript tattoos adorning his shoulders. He also had a tattoo of two Chinese characters on the back of his left calf, making me think of that old joke, the beef with broccoli Chinese take out menu tattoo.

"Is squash supposed to be soft and squishy or firm and hard?" he asked me. I immediately looked around to see if this was some kind of joke. He appeared to be in earnest.
"Firm and hard," I told him.
"Well, it's not," he replied. "It's all soft and squishy, every single one of them." He pointed in the general direction of the squash bin.
"Don't tell me," I said, "tell him." I pointed at the produce department guy who had his back to us, carefully arranging the green peppers so that if you removed the one that looked good, the rest would come crashing down around you.

RC and I turned our attention to the bags of mini carrots. "Why do these people always talk to me?" I asked her. "Do I look like I work here?" RC giggled and grabbed a bag of carrots off the shelf.

When I turned back around, the tattoo guy was there again, only this time he held a yellow squash in his hand. You know how those things look, sort of curved upward, bulbous on one end? Well, he was palming it, like he was used to holding squash in that intimate way.
"Here, feel it," he told me. So I did.
"You're right, it is soft," I said.
"See, I told you," he answered. He walked back over to the squash bin and put it back with its friends before pushing his cart away from the produce department.

RC and I looked at each other. "I can't believe I just touched another man's squash, " I told her. I meant it too. I couldn't believe I just did that. Who presents a squash to a stranger for fondling? And why would I feel obligated to touch it? Can't I ever say no?
"What did it feel like?" RC laughed.
"Soft. Flaccid. Just like he said."
"At least he didn't ask you to taste it."
"Yeah, really. I should have told him I only go by mouth feel." We cackled and pushed our cart toward the dairy case.

The weird part is this is not the first odd experience I have had at that grocery store. When I lived on James Island, many moons ago, I once saw a large black lady pull down her pants and piss right on the sidewalk in front of the store. Why she didn't just walk inside and use the restroom like a sane person, I don't know. She didn't appear to be making some sort of statement, since there were no employees to witness the event, just me. How fortunate. I returned home after that and called the manager of the store to tell him what I had seen so he could send some poor unsuspecting bag boy out there to squeegee the sidewalk, although I am pretty sure it somehow violated a child labor law. Of course, back then, it was a Winn Dixie, so it sort of made more sense. Maybe next time I should stick to the Piggly Wiggly.