my existence when he knocked my envelope right out of my hand. He shoved his envelope in the slot, another envelope in the cable company’s slot, and away he went to grab a carton of film off a shelf down the aisle.
I picked up my envelope, now decorated with a dark footprint, and stuffed it in the slot. I had to push his sloppily inserted envelope in also.
Well.
I don’t want to be one of those doom-and-gloom senior citizens who believe the manners of the younger generation are careening the world toward a state of barbaric savagery, but sometimes you have to wonder.
Or maybe it wasn’t just the younger generation. While I was in the little shopping center, I decided to go over to the drugstore. I was almost out of that pink hand cream I splurge on because the scent is so lovely. Two middle-aged clerks were stocking shelves and carrying on an animated conversation about someone named Destiny.
“Well, the thing is, she’s just not in touch with herself,” the woman in the purple T-shirt asserted as she climbed on a step stool to place bottles of blue shampoo on a top shelf. “Know what I mean?”
“There’s this fantastic new psychic over on Madison Street. If you could just get her to go there . . .”
A psychic on Madison Street now. Just what we need.
I wandered up and down the aisles, looking for the hand cream, which was not where it had always been. I passed the women several times. Once I had to dodge the swing of the step stool as the clerk moved down the aisle.
“How about aromatherapy?” the woman in green pants suggested. “My cousin says—”
Finally I interrupted. “Excuse me, but I’m looking for some hand cream, and it’s always been right over there.” I pointed to a shelf loaded with a dizzying array of lotions and creams. “I don’t remember the brand name right now, something about lace, I think. And it’s pink. Oh, wait, I may have a coupon in my purse . . .”
It was a fairly long bit of conversation, from my point of view, but apparently it flitted right past the saleswoman. She looked through me to a leggy young creature studying a carton of hair coloring.
“May I help you find something?” the saleswoman asked with an eager air of concerned helpfulness. The other salesclerk was already disappearing through the swinging doors into a rear storeroom.
I gave up on pink hand cream for today. My numb jaw now felt as if it was getting ready to burst into an ache. I wondered if, under the lingering effects of Novocain, I’d perhaps mumbled my request to the clerk. Or, heaven forbid, drooled over the numb lip.
Yet by the time I got home, a different and shocking new possibility rose up to confront me.
6
I’m invisible.
The proof was all there. The driver who hadn’t seen me and almost ran me down with his car. Rena Rasmussen looking right through me at church. The young man pushing in front of me at the utility box, never seeing me. The dental assistant, seeing me but not seeing me. The salesclerks in the drugstore.
I stopped the Thunderbird in the driveway. At the moment I didn’t feel up to putting it in the garage. I sat there with hands wrapped around the wheel.
Some of what I’d encountered could no doubt be attributed to simple carelessness. Or uncaring rudeness. People were busy, preoccupied, stressed. Manners were no longer a high priority. But was that all there was to it? No. People simply did not see me.
I jumped out of the car, rushed into the house and down the hallway to the bathroom. I stared at myself in the mirror over the bathroom sink. My stampeding heartbeat slowed, and my moment of panic felt like some foolish social gaffe. The mirror still reflected an image.
Of course it did. This was, after all, Madison Street, not the Twilight Zone.
Same possum-gray hair. Same hazel eyes. Same crow’s feet, with deeper lines wrapped like half-moons around my mouth. My neck did look rather more scrawny than I remembered, but it hadn’t disappeared.
So,
I picked up my envelope, now decorated with a dark footprint, and stuffed it in the slot. I had to push his sloppily inserted envelope in also.
Well.
I don’t want to be one of those doom-and-gloom senior citizens who believe the manners of the younger generation are careening the world toward a state of barbaric savagery, but sometimes you have to wonder.
Or maybe it wasn’t just the younger generation. While I was in the little shopping center, I decided to go over to the drugstore. I was almost out of that pink hand cream I splurge on because the scent is so lovely. Two middle-aged clerks were stocking shelves and carrying on an animated conversation about someone named Destiny.
“Well, the thing is, she’s just not in touch with herself,” the woman in the purple T-shirt asserted as she climbed on a step stool to place bottles of blue shampoo on a top shelf. “Know what I mean?”
“There’s this fantastic new psychic over on Madison Street. If you could just get her to go there . . .”
A psychic on Madison Street now. Just what we need.
I wandered up and down the aisles, looking for the hand cream, which was not where it had always been. I passed the women several times. Once I had to dodge the swing of the step stool as the clerk moved down the aisle.
“How about aromatherapy?” the woman in green pants suggested. “My cousin says—”
Finally I interrupted. “Excuse me, but I’m looking for some hand cream, and it’s always been right over there.” I pointed to a shelf loaded with a dizzying array of lotions and creams. “I don’t remember the brand name right now, something about lace, I think. And it’s pink. Oh, wait, I may have a coupon in my purse . . .”
It was a fairly long bit of conversation, from my point of view, but apparently it flitted right past the saleswoman. She looked through me to a leggy young creature studying a carton of hair coloring.
“May I help you find something?” the saleswoman asked with an eager air of concerned helpfulness. The other salesclerk was already disappearing through the swinging doors into a rear storeroom.
I gave up on pink hand cream for today. My numb jaw now felt as if it was getting ready to burst into an ache. I wondered if, under the lingering effects of Novocain, I’d perhaps mumbled my request to the clerk. Or, heaven forbid, drooled over the numb lip.
Yet by the time I got home, a different and shocking new possibility rose up to confront me.
6
I’m invisible.
The proof was all there. The driver who hadn’t seen me and almost ran me down with his car. Rena Rasmussen looking right through me at church. The young man pushing in front of me at the utility box, never seeing me. The dental assistant, seeing me but not seeing me. The salesclerks in the drugstore.
I stopped the Thunderbird in the driveway. At the moment I didn’t feel up to putting it in the garage. I sat there with hands wrapped around the wheel.
Some of what I’d encountered could no doubt be attributed to simple carelessness. Or uncaring rudeness. People were busy, preoccupied, stressed. Manners were no longer a high priority. But was that all there was to it? No. People simply did not see me.
I jumped out of the car, rushed into the house and down the hallway to the bathroom. I stared at myself in the mirror over the bathroom sink. My stampeding heartbeat slowed, and my moment of panic felt like some foolish social gaffe. The mirror still reflected an image.
Of course it did. This was, after all, Madison Street, not the Twilight Zone.
Same possum-gray hair. Same hazel eyes. Same crow’s feet, with deeper lines wrapped like half-moons around my mouth. My neck did look rather more scrawny than I remembered, but it hadn’t disappeared.
So,
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