Pariah Day

Do you ever have those days when people find you annoying, and the more you try to ingratiate yourself, the more they can’t stand you? That was me, yesterday.

In the grocery store, rounding an aisle, I almost crashed into another shopper.  I said “whoops!” with theatrically wide eyes and a playful grin but she just glared at me.

Maybe she’s just having a bad day, I told myself, proud that for once I wasn’t taking her super-bitchiness personally, when I knocked into a Nature Valley granola display. Nothing was damaged, but when I restacked the granola with a laugh and “No harm, no foul,” to a store employee, he just furrowed his brow into his face tattoo.

In the parking lot, I was rolling my empty cart back to the cart kiosk because I’m conscientious and was startled by a loud beep behind me. I guess my sense of civic responsibility required an impatient asshole to slow down for a few seconds. “Have a nice day,” I yelled, which I can see might have sounded insincere in context, so I took the raised middle finger in stride.

I got home and was pulling into the driveway when an Amazon truck stopped behind me. I rolled down my window and stuck my head out. “Yay, a package!” I said.

The driver wasn’t having it. “Yeah, and maybe if you pull your car in, I can actually deliver it to you.”

My trademark cheer is no longer reliably effective, opening the door to those who want to smack me. But to every day I am a pariah are three days where people treat me well. That’s what I thought about, sitting in the car in the garage and waiting for the Amazon guy to leave. That, and how much sense it makes, that people are so crazy about their dogs.