These Exchanges Might Only Make Sense to Me
I pour some spinach in a blender at work. I am making a smoothie. It also has almond milk and hemp protein powder and a banana. I'm only supposed to use half a banana in banana smoothies, but Jesus Christ, no. The final product wouldn't be gross if I could put honey in it, but hardcore vegans don't eat honey, since it comes from bees. The hardcore vegan customer will probably send it back and tell me it tastes gross. Like spinach and sand. That is what they ordered.
Carl the line cook needs some bananas. I move aside so he can get them out of the cooler.
"So I may have a date this weekend," he tells me conspiratorially.
"That guy you stalked?" I ask.
"It wasn't stalking," he said. "He may have a boyfriend. I just wanted to know. I'll know for sure this weekend. I'm hanging out where he hangs out. His friends'll be there. I should be able to find out for sure."
"Well, say, how are you about open relationships? Or polyamory? Like, what if he has a boyfriend but it's okay?" I ask.
"Oh God, I don't know. Things aren't like how they used to be. Everyone is getting so domestic. I know some gay couples who have become positively prim and proper now, with their adopted children and everything," he says.
"Yeah, when did gay marriage get so heternormative?" I demand to no one, cranking the blender up to high. "Smash the family, smash the state. Where'd that go?"
And Carl laughs at me. He laughs hard. Of course he does, Carl, the middle-aged gay man who has known assault, and abuse, and terrible, awful loneliness, and me, with my short hair, and my queer-friendly t-shirts from the UConn Rainbow Center, and my boyfriend who lives a thousand miles away. I'm funny.
I go with my insane boss Claire to a benefit banquet for the New Haven Public Library. All the city's movers and shakers are there. The public officials, the Yale faculty, the rich folks who felt like paying a bunch of money to stand around and politely decline the cupcakes I offer.
"Good to see you, Claire," says a tall man in a grey suit. "I'm John," he says, shaking my hand.
"Oh! I was saving this for you!" Claire flutes, pulling a crumpled newspaper article out of her apron. "Look, look, in Utah, they have all these programs for Mexican immigrants to come and find work! Look! Why can't we do something like that here?"
He squints politely at the article.
"Oh yes, I read about these. Well, you know these were state-wide efforts, and had the full backing of the Morman church and several major agricultural companies--"
"I just don't understand! I just don't understand why we can't do something like that here in New Haven? Why can't we do something like that--"
"WILL MAYOR JOHN DESTEFANO PLEASE COME TO THE PODIUM," blares a nearby loudspeaker.
"Woops, gotta go," says John, darting away. Claire is left huffing and frowning, so disappointed after she went to all the trouble of saving old newspaper clippings for the mayor of New Haven.
I stand with a wad of newspaper in my hand, wiping grease of of the deli case at work. Today was the St. Patrick's Day parade, and we had an endless stream of drunk people tottering in and trying to use the bathroom. Eventually, Claire got so fed up with the shouts of "Yo what's the CHEAPEST THING I can buy here I GOTTA USE THE BATHROOM," that she closed the bathroom to everyone. Including paying customers. Of course we immediately got a ton of pregnant women and grandmothers with toddlers that I had to send away.
A man behind me calls, "Miss! Hey miss!" and I turn around.
"Eh, you got a bathroom here?" he asked. He is swaying slightly.
"No, sorry, we had to close it for maintenance. It won't be functioning until 5:00," I say.
"Aw that's fine. That's fine. All I really wants something to eat. Hey," he reaches out and takes hold of my wrist. I don't get touched a lot these days, let alone by strange drunk men, and the sensation ripples through my whole body unpleasantly. "You got sandwiches here?"
"Yes," I say, gently trying to pull away. His grip tightens. "Um, we're a vegetarian restaurant, but we have a lot of sandwiches."
"Oh, like what?" he asks, leaning in closer. I twist out of his grip so I can point to our menu boards up on the wall. He grabs my hand again. This goes on for a little while longer. Him holding on to me and asking normal questions. No one sees. Finally I manage to pull away and go back to work. I use the adult personals section of the weekly paper to wipe toddler fingerprints off the glass. I feel the man's eyes on my back until I go back in the kitchen.
I am at the counter, making colored frosting for decorating cakes.
"Brenna, why are you making frostings? I thought we had enough," says Jeana, a young college girl I just recently finished training.
"We didn't have any with flower tips," I explain. Flower tips are for decorations. Circle tips are for writing. "Can't make stuff pretty without the flower tips."
"What do you mean? We have two white ones right here?" Jeana gestures to the two bloated, soggy bags of plain white buttercream in the frosting bin. They both have flower tips.
"I think we need a little more diversity," I say, stirring my bowl of pastel pink frosting. "A little more representation among the other colors. I'm not okay with white supremacist frosting."
Jeana, the young butch lesbian who doesn't believe women's studies classes should exist, laughs at me. Laughs and shakes her head. "Only you, Brenna."
Everyone at work laughs at me.
I am training the new guy, Luis, how to run food. This means teaching him what gets bread, what gets sour cream, how to ladle soup and sprinkle croutons on salads. I trained Luis how to do the counter work too. It was a little hard. He moved here from Oaxaca, Mexico, when he was six, and while his English is great, he has barely spoken any since graduating from high school last year. He mishears things and needs stuff repeated to really remember it. I try to be thorough, and clear, but not to patronize him. I worry he thinks I think he's stupid sometimes.
Claire buts in. "Oh, Brenna, you're doing such a great job." I smile blandly and send Luis out with a platter of nachos and guacamole.
"You know, gosh, when you're a professor, I really hope you teach," she continues. She knows I'm going to get my Ph.d in sociology. She has no idea what this means, so the best description I could give her was that I would eventually become a professor. "I mean, you're such a fantastic teacher. It's just, it would be such a crime if you didn't teach."
What is wrong with you? This is not teaching. I am explaining to Luis how to put salsa and guacamole on nachos. My career ambition, my life ambition, is to teach, to really teach. To give young people the intellectual and academic tools they need to see, to understand and to dismantle vast systems of structural oppression and disadvantage. I want to teach, I want to inspire, I want to fight for justice, I want to be respected as a human being for my ideas and opinions. What is wrong with you? How dare you?
I can't wait to quit my job.