He knew that thought clings 'round dead limbs/ Not the final meeting

[from a spam-email promoting a website that caters to those whose paraphilias might possibly include the act/thought of schtupping pallid Eastern European slave-brides]

Once there was a time - long ago, it now seems - when I could reasonably expect an ordinary retail experience to be simply that. I would enter a store, rove about in a mindless, list-free effort to secure the sundry goods I needed/wanted, pay for said items, and depart. All interactions with other people would be interactions *I* had initiated - from grunt-speaking to the people who had the misfortune to accompany me to attempting to ask questions of the super-jazzed, friendly sales representatives who skitter away like gravid roaches under a fridge at dawn at the mere suggestion that they be asked to work. Let's put it this way: when the checkout-haint asks me whether or not I'd found everything I'd sought out in that particular establishment, it usually takes significant effort for me to not say that my discovery of the items in question had nothing NOTHING I SAID to do with being helped in any way by sales staff. During our last holiday season, I sustained myself for several hours envisioning a time when I could carry a sawed-off blowgun and use it to temporarily stun someone who might have access to KNOWLEDGE OF THE THINGS.

Given this, it should come as little surprise to me that random-ass strangers feel an innate need to approach me in a startling array of retail establishments, addressing me as though I am a staff member and then becoming filled with blinding, white-hot rage when I inform them that I am not in that establishment's employ. Drawn like leatherback sea turtle hatchlings to the waning light of a gibbous moon, they lazily make their way to me for entreaty and succor, neither of which I can provide.

When this first happened, I wrote it off. After all, I was wearing a red, fleece vest and I was standing rather authoritatively in the Men's Underthings Section in a Target. Makes sense. The lady who came up to me asked me where she could find the Feline Pine cat litter (good luck with that, sistah - my cats would rather have colostomies than use that shit) and, while I did apprise her of my non-staff status, I *did* know where the litter was. So I told her. She was happy. I felt, momentarily, like I wasn't dead inside.

Then it began happening more frequently.

No, Squirrel-Eyed White Woman at the Christmas Tree Shoppe: I don't have any idea where one would find gingerbread house kits. I am wearing ratty jeans and a hooded sweatshirt with a large ursid printed upon it. I don't work here.

No, Harried Young Woman With Child Asuck Your Bosoms in the Mall: I don't know where the Gold for Cash confessional/booth moved to. I am wearing an ill-fitting t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops. I don't work here.

No, Patchouli-Reeking Gentleman at the Health Food Store: I don't know where one would find flax-seed oil caplets. I REALLY don't work here. I am wearing leather. RECOIL IN HORROR IF YOU MUST. 

A general feeling of WHATTHEMOTHEROFGODISHAPPENING settled delicately into my bones, causing them to ache delicately. I sought the wise counsel of my "friends", most of whom said the same thing:

"Well, gee, you just LOOK knowledgeable/friendly/helpful/like you wouldn't spend several days dining on the carcass of a freshly-slaughtered tot."

Helpful.

Moving forward without a clear idea of what motivates several random strangers every week to seek me out - sometimes singling me out a crowd of people who are much like me - I decided that it was the beard. I've sported a full beard/mustache since moving to Indiana nearly ten years ago, and based on this chart,the "full beard" is the hallmark of trustworthiness. I think our society has placed a full beard upon a pedestal of trustworthiness, due in no small part to that ass-hat Santa Claus. "He looks jolly", people might think, "and surely he's never knifed a retarded nun. Perhaps I shall presume that he is helpful and knowledgeable!" I'd shave the damn thing off if I didn't love it so.

After getting several threatening texts from Mowgli (WHERE ARE YOU AND WHY DON'T YOU VISIT YOU HEARTLESS BASTARD) I decided to seek her counsel. I mean, I don't know where she would have gotten the cellphone and further have no idea how she would have worked the keys, so I figure that she might at least be resourceful enough to tell me the truth.

{approaching her mew}

Mowgli: Oh, THERE you are. It's been days, you know. I don't know why you don't love me anymore.
Me: It's the dead of winter, darling, and we don't do raptor presentations with you until Spring.
Mowgli: Do you think that's an excuse? C'mon, make something up. 'Oh, I got called away on a secret diplomatic mission' or 'I had to have a minor procedure to correct my polydactl feet.' Because HOW WOULD I EVER KNOW
Me: How did you get that cellphone?
Mowgli: ....
Me: We'll address that later. Anyway, I wanted to know why it is that random people approach me for help all the time.
Mowgli: Two things: one, you usually smell like Brut, which most people associate with adolescence and convalescence, neither of which are threatening. Two, you have...well, a look about you.
Me: Wow. And I was afraid you were going to be vague here. And P.S., owls don't have a sense of smell.
Mowgli: Believe what you want. Say: did you have curry for lunch?
Me: Um, yes. Wait: how did....
Mowgli: BOW TO ME, SUBHUMAN
Me: Can I have that cellphone now? Calling Keith in the dead of night to tell him that he should 'WATCH THE TREES' is uncalled for.
Mowgli: I don't know what you see in him. Can he lay a beautiful, life-filled egg for you?
Me: I am leaving now.

I remain baffled, but much like that little brat in The Sixth Sense, I have decided to help when I can instead of doing what comes instinctively, which is SHANK TO THE FLANK. I know I must have some pretty serious karma-debt to repay, and I suppose it could certainly be a more malevolent sort of punishment. After all, I could be the tunic-clad guy who has to sponge-bathe Newt Gingrich. "Nice and slow", his rotted, gravelly voice would croon, "and pay special attention to my what-whats."

***

In the dark of tonight, briefly interrupting the silence of a lovely countryside homestead, a Great Horned Owl with a Blackberry is going to be ordering Chinese food, which she will expect will be delivered to her mew. If you are the one who picks up the phone at the Semi-Local Chinese Place, you had BEST BELIEVE that she's not going to be pleased if you forget that little greasy sack of wontons.


Until next time,

Dom

{This post originally appeared on my short-lived "Plumicorn Prophecies" blog, which I have combined with this one.}