Saturday, February 28, 2009

Saturday Musings

Did you ever feel like you were outside of life, watching it just happen? That happens to me occasionally, and today was one of those days.

I was standing in the slowest check-out line at our grocery store. The bagger walked away (this seems to always happen when I choose a line based on whether or not there is a bagger) and the cashier was gazing into space, putting one item at a time in a bag. I felt like I was watching one of those movies where everything is suddenly in slow motion; all I needed was the soundtrack that they have in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Then I looked at the front of the line, and the guy checking out was a dad of kids who my kids went to school with. I haven't seen him in a while, and he looked older. I was thinking about how some people soften with age while others harden. Well he was not a soft ager. His two kids were "perfect" kids - top grades, talented in everything they touched. My husband used to say wait'll those kids go off on their own - they're gonna go nuts. Anyway, for some reason one of the internet news clips that I'd just read, about a child molester, popped into my head, cause often these creepy people seem so good in real-life and everyone is shocked to find out what goes on behind closed doors, and I thought what if he is one of those?

After suffering from insomnia for a long time, i have been sleeping and dreaming a lot all week, and the dreams are totally bizarre. Maybe this molester thing was part of that. I was awake for this one, though.

4 comments:

anno said...

It's Saturday. The perfect day for those "Walter Mitty and me" moments. Hope your next one forgoes the child molester, though, and features more heroic and entertaining moments. I hope you get some sleep!

Anonymous said...

Let me get this straight. You made the leap from the kids going off on their own and going crazy to the idea that this father must be a child molester?

Maybe you never were at Giant Eagle at all and the entire thing was a dream. It seems to bizarre to be real.

By the way, who was the dad????? Tell me tomorrow!

Jeanie said...

Sometimes I have this thought that someday people will say about me, "She always seemed so friendly and nice and easy going -- who would have thought that she would go insane like that!"

It's from thoughts like those you had today that good novels come from! There's a good story in there!

Jams said...

Funny! I once saw a distraught woman just after she had attempted to get money out of an ATM. It was obvious that she was shocked to find no money in her account. My mind began to produce scenarios about why she had no money in her account, who drew it out and why, etc. Just a stream of consciousness. By the way it's almost 4:00am here. I can't sleep.