Orange Sheets
Yesterday I went to TJ Maxx and left with tears in my eyes. I can be a sensitive sap, i.e. deeply disturbed by how humans behave.
While I cast my seeking eye over the store’s racks and shelves, a voice over the intercom said, “Please check to see that everyone you came with is with you right now. We have a lost child up at customer service. Please check to see that everyone you came with is with you right now.”
I came alone so I was ok on that one.
I had gone into the store seeking a small shelving unit and small table. I found neither of those but I did find bright orange sheets very marked down, which I didn’t need, but they were bright orange. What would the color gods think if I’d left the sheets sitting on the shelf? I didn’t want that wrath.
I walked toward the cash register. A large black woman was standing behind the main desk, holding a small Latino girl crying her big dark eyes out. The lady’s voice came on over the intercom again, with the firm addition, “We still have a very upset child up here.” The little girl was very upset.
Someone from the jewelry counter yelled across the store, “Say it in Spanish!”
The woman holding the girl: “She’s so upset she won’t tell us her name!”
Jewelry man: “No—say it what you said in Spanish.”
Woman holding girl: “She so upset she won’t tell us her name.”
Jewelry man plus jewelry girl: “Say it on the intercom in Spanish.”
The message finally got across just as a tiny and early 20-something Latino girl emerged from the misses knits and walked to the counter: “That’s my baby,” she said, with the breeze of a person collecting lost keys.
As the young mother was collecting her daughter, who quickly reached out to her mother, two stereotypically Jersey women standing behind me in line started: “I can’t believe that. I’m just stunned. When my child gets three feet away from me I get hysterical. I’m just stunned. I mean, how could she not know…”
The large black woman who’d been holding the child: “We get this at least three times a week. People just start looking at the clothes and forget to pay attention.”
Jersey women: “I’m just stunned. I just don’t see how she couldn’t know. How could she not know. Her child!”
They went on and tears formed in my eyes.
Tear 1: How rude to so loudly judge and scorn as the mother was walking away. They could have no idea of the circumstances or what the mother might have been thinking or feeling. And they didn't allow any other possibility to enter their minds because they were so concerned about scorning in a show of their superiority.
Tear 2: Almost every time I venture out on a shopping trip I see a mother absent-mindedly yelling at her child, regardless of what the child is doing: having stepped three feet away, has to go to the bathroom, is hungry or thirsty, doesn’t want to be fucking clothes shopping because he or she is a child. The mother desperately seeks to show some sort of control in order to prove to herself and to those around her that she has it. Look, I know how to control my child. I’m yelling. And many of those are the same mothers who protect their children from so much that the children grow up scared to explore, experiment, and, simply put, live.
Tear 3: I chided the Jersey women for shouting it, but really how could the mother not have known her daughter was gone? As it turned out, the mother did speak English, so she must have heard the first message delivered over the intercom. The first message had come at least ten if not fifteen minutes earlier than the second. That’s a long time if something so vital as your child is missing. I began to wonder what her life was like, both the mother and the daughter.
All of this made me guttingly sad, the crude distance between people, a seeming hopelessness for people ever to understand one another—from the inside out and not just on the outside. Just buy another sweater, and some candy for the little one. That’ll shut them all up, put a sheet over the black empty between yourself and them. Buy another set of sheets you don’t need, to keep you from yourself.
I went on to Target and found nothing I needed. I do, however, think I'll enjoy sleeping in these bright orange sheets.
While I cast my seeking eye over the store’s racks and shelves, a voice over the intercom said, “Please check to see that everyone you came with is with you right now. We have a lost child up at customer service. Please check to see that everyone you came with is with you right now.”
I came alone so I was ok on that one.
I had gone into the store seeking a small shelving unit and small table. I found neither of those but I did find bright orange sheets very marked down, which I didn’t need, but they were bright orange. What would the color gods think if I’d left the sheets sitting on the shelf? I didn’t want that wrath.
I walked toward the cash register. A large black woman was standing behind the main desk, holding a small Latino girl crying her big dark eyes out. The lady’s voice came on over the intercom again, with the firm addition, “We still have a very upset child up here.” The little girl was very upset.
Someone from the jewelry counter yelled across the store, “Say it in Spanish!”
The woman holding the girl: “She’s so upset she won’t tell us her name!”
Jewelry man: “No—say it what you said in Spanish.”
Woman holding girl: “She so upset she won’t tell us her name.”
Jewelry man plus jewelry girl: “Say it on the intercom in Spanish.”
The message finally got across just as a tiny and early 20-something Latino girl emerged from the misses knits and walked to the counter: “That’s my baby,” she said, with the breeze of a person collecting lost keys.
As the young mother was collecting her daughter, who quickly reached out to her mother, two stereotypically Jersey women standing behind me in line started: “I can’t believe that. I’m just stunned. When my child gets three feet away from me I get hysterical. I’m just stunned. I mean, how could she not know…”
The large black woman who’d been holding the child: “We get this at least three times a week. People just start looking at the clothes and forget to pay attention.”
Jersey women: “I’m just stunned. I just don’t see how she couldn’t know. How could she not know. Her child!”
They went on and tears formed in my eyes.
Tear 1: How rude to so loudly judge and scorn as the mother was walking away. They could have no idea of the circumstances or what the mother might have been thinking or feeling. And they didn't allow any other possibility to enter their minds because they were so concerned about scorning in a show of their superiority.
Tear 2: Almost every time I venture out on a shopping trip I see a mother absent-mindedly yelling at her child, regardless of what the child is doing: having stepped three feet away, has to go to the bathroom, is hungry or thirsty, doesn’t want to be fucking clothes shopping because he or she is a child. The mother desperately seeks to show some sort of control in order to prove to herself and to those around her that she has it. Look, I know how to control my child. I’m yelling. And many of those are the same mothers who protect their children from so much that the children grow up scared to explore, experiment, and, simply put, live.
Tear 3: I chided the Jersey women for shouting it, but really how could the mother not have known her daughter was gone? As it turned out, the mother did speak English, so she must have heard the first message delivered over the intercom. The first message had come at least ten if not fifteen minutes earlier than the second. That’s a long time if something so vital as your child is missing. I began to wonder what her life was like, both the mother and the daughter.
All of this made me guttingly sad, the crude distance between people, a seeming hopelessness for people ever to understand one another—from the inside out and not just on the outside. Just buy another sweater, and some candy for the little one. That’ll shut them all up, put a sheet over the black empty between yourself and them. Buy another set of sheets you don’t need, to keep you from yourself.
I went on to Target and found nothing I needed. I do, however, think I'll enjoy sleeping in these bright orange sheets.
1 Comments:
That really sucks (for all involved parties). One of mybiggest grievances is parents screaming at their children,for reasons other than that they are in immediate danger or did something terrible. Or people whowhine aloud about why people don't do something (yell at)a crying child. Sometimes they gotta cry. Yelling makes it worse. When I was at Borders I was always amazed at the parents whowould spend $3.50 on a flavored double mocha latte (or some other frilly and unnesecary drink)but wouldnt get their thirsty or starving children a milk. Why can you get treats but not them?
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