Can I tell you about the great day I had at gig work yesterday? Here’s the tale of the day I broadened the understanding a little girl has of what a man can be.
I’m waiting in a Safeway aisle to pick up a prescription from its pharmacy in the back of the store. Ahead of me is a tall young attractive blonde woman, so it’s better than usual working conditions. She says, toward the lower shelf of toilet paper, “I think someone else is going to find you.”
I look down to my right where she’s focused and there is a little girl peeking out from behind the “Charmin Mega 30 = 120”1 toilet paper package on the bottom shelf. She’s giggling and chatting with her mom while she plays in her toilet paper fort. I’m on my phone, half watching their interaction, half scrolling my phone, when suddenly the girl is addressing me.
“I have a phone too!” she says, holding up one of those plastic kiddie phones. She’s brown-skinned, dark hair, looks a bit like my five-year-old granddaughter. She’s animated and outgoing, unafraid of striking up conversation with me.
“Oh,” I say. “I don’t know how yours works.”
“Do you have games?” she asks.
“Maybe.” I crouch a little while shooting a glance at mom to see if I’m okay to proceed. Mom gives me a look of assent, grateful for the break so she can scroll on her phone.
I recognize that mom’s look. She’s the parent of precocious outgoing child and this for both of them was a regular occurrence. I’m certain I must have put my mother in the same situation.
“Let’s see if I have any games.” I show her the screen, she scrolls thru apps, picks a Tetris-like game and starts playing it. Girl and I are playing and chatting. Mom’s happy to get a break. Everything is going well in the pharmacy aisle line.
Kids Say The Darnedest Things
The line moves, so I have to get up. When I do, girl sees my hand holding my phone and asks, loudly—but no louder than our playful banter that the line had been enjoying—”Are you a girl?”
I’ve been asked many things, but never this. “Nope,” I reply.
“But you have color on your nails!” she observes.
“Yes, I do. That’s because I like to express myself,” I told her, holding out both hands so she can see them all.
She quizzes me about the letters (I’ve currently got F WAR on my left and F ICE on my right), wants to see the purple on my thumbnail Pride flag, and I’m just matter-of-factly responding to all her queries.
Then, out of left field, she states, “I know you pee standing up.”
Not missing a beat, I tell her, “Usually. Sometimes I’ll sit down.” Mom is aghast for a second, but relaxes following my nonplussed reaction.
She then points at my right nipple, poking beneath my lavender t-shirt. “I can see your boobies. But they’re really small.”
Yeah, kid, I could lose 30lbs. But I keep my composure and reply, “Well, thank goodness. What’s your name?”
“Mia.”
“I’m Russ.” I turn to her mom. “I’ve got a granddaughter about her age, is she 5?”
“She’s 6,” mom answers.
“My mom’s 29!” Mia helpfully interjects to an eyeroll from mom.
“Well,” I answered, “I’m 58. Do you know what that means, Mia?”
“What?”
“It means I am twice as old as your mom.”
“Whoa.”
“When I was as young as your mom, your mom was just being born.”
The pharmacy line moves, and now it’s mom’s turn. “Come on, Mia,” she says as they walk up to the pharmacist. Mia takes her mom’s hand and spins around, waving with her other hand and saying, “Bye, Russ!”
I give a little wave. “Bye, Mia!” ☺️
I was smiling for the rest of my workday. I guess, technically, with my double-pierced hooped earrings, painted nails, and pastel sartorial flair, I am “gender nonconforming,” at least in this 62% Trumpy county. There were other standard-issue heteronormative rural folk in that line as well. It felt “prideful and honorable”2 to be some old male queerish stranger getting along with a curious straightforward kid.
- Is anybody else sick and tired of having to do algebra problems when shopping for toilet paper or paper towels. Do I get the 4x = 8, the 6x = 15, the 12x = 36, or the 30x = 120? Does anybody even make toilet paper anymore where x =1? ↩︎
- “Prideful and honorable,” courtesy of David Cross from that Lifeboat sketch on Mr. Show’s 4th season in the 90s where talk show host Bob Odenkirk and guests and one audience member are stranded on an ocean lifeboat, culminating in Cross’s redneck character thinking “before I die, I’m gonna fuck me a fish.” ↩︎