Small town New England, everyone pretty much knows everyone. Maybe not personally - but you recognize the same people from the convenience store, the diner, the post office, etc. You can connect faces with cars around town, so-and-so's daughter, whats-his-name's brother. Things are certainly changing, this town has gotten bigger for sure. I suppose going back twenty, thirty years it was different. I was never good with names but for some reason I could tell who was who by the car they were driving. Now that I think of it, I still do that!
I'm going to go off track a little bit, but A) It's somewhat connected to this story about recognizing people by their cars, and B) I need to vent. (The names and places have been changed to protect their privacy and my ass.)
You see, there's this ogre of a woman who works at a coffee shop in Simsbury. She will remain nameless, as the words I am about to type to describe her may or may not be accurate due to my extreme anger and creative imagination. If you know who this is Small Towners, let's just keep it anonymous, shall we? No need to stir up any more drama (no pund intended.) If you know the coffee shop as well, let's keep that between us too. I'm sure it's not the owner's fault they have an ogre working for them - she's probably a princess by day and ogre by night. Common in our area, lots of bridges.
Anyways - One day I ordered a coffee with Splenda, and she dropped the Splenda bag in my coffee cup. Simple mistake. A shake out would have been sufficient, and a new bag. But no, not for this Mel's Diner winner. I was horrified as I watched her stick her whole damn hand in my cup fishin' around for that Splenda bag! Then she acted like nothing had happened and tried to finish making my coffee. Adding insult to injury - I watched in slow motion as she LICKED her fingers and reached for a coffee lid from the stack in front of her. I swear I almost passed out and died. Now I'm no Monk, but I don't even share a soda with my husband much less let some disgusting, germ spreading stranger touch MY lid that MY lips will drink from with HER yucky, filthy hands and saliva! When I expressed my disgust and refused the coffee, she actually got mad at ME! "My hands are clean!", she spewed, with her dirty mouth. (she probably wasn't as dirty as I'm describing, but I was in a semi-coma, things are hazy.) I stormed out in complete disgust.
As you can see, the whole event bothered me a little. So whenever I see her car, I avoid that coffee shop at all cost.
Now... back to my original story;
My sister, Heidie, was shopping at Stop and Shop once and spotted our Mother's car sitting outside the store. She was pulled up along the sidewalk, engine running, occupied with some papers or something. She'd sit in the driveway like that sometimes for an hour looking for something like her keys which were already in the ignition, or her glasses which were on top of her head. Seeing her sit there with the car running was nothing unusual. Heidie was going to run over and ask her if she was just headed in or leaving, maybe she'd like to shop with her? As she got closer, she could see Mom behind the stearing wheel counting a LARGE stack of money. She thought it would be hysterical to play a little prank on her. (Apparently she learned nothing after that whole exploding cigarette trick as a kid!)
While Mom was busy counting the money - Heidie ran up, whipped open the passenger side door and yelled in her scariest voice, "GIMME ALL YOUR MONEY, BITCH!". That was followed by blood curdling screams and money flying everywhere inside the car! Heidie, expecting to be laughing in hysterics, went from an ear-to-ear smile to deer-in-the-headlights shock as she realized the mistake she'd made... THAT was NOT our Mother!
She tried to apologize and explain herself, but the woman was clearly upset. Don't worry, Heidie didn't go to jail. I suppose all of us siblings telling this story over and over for twenty plus years is punishment enough. :-)
