15!

This weekend I got a call from my bank inquiring about a $0.00 dollar charge from Amazon on my debit card. They asked if I made this charge and I said I didn’t and apparently nobody else had since it was, ahem, zero dollars. “Well,” they said, “if you didn’t make it then it is considered fraud and we have to freeze your card.” I tried to plead the case of my very-used debit card, that I get alerts for every transaction, that I have worked in finance for decades, that if anyone tried to use it I would know, then tossed a Hail Mary. “Please don’t freeze it just yet. I need it through the weekend.” A serious Mr. Fraud said, “Well, until it gets straightened out you’ll have to use a credit card or get cash from the bank to make any purchases. Or you can always borrow money from a friend.” Borrow money from a friend? What the….? “It’s not that I don’t have money,” I said,”It’s that I don’t have access to the money I have.” He was a man following a script and read accordingly, “You’ll have to call your bank on Monday to get it taken care of. We’re the fraud department. We shut cards down. We don’t open them back up.” I said gee thanks and he said, “Ope, I stand corrected. You’ll have to call the bank on Tuesday because Monday is a national holiday.” Then he wished me a good weekend and I wished him a pox on his finances.

This morning I went to Target to grocery shop because I have a card with them and we needed everything including an olive green comforter (Jeremiah Brent!) and a pink and red table runner because, duh, Valentine’s Day. When I got to the checkout, Mary, started ringing me up. I had been to her once before and back then as I was unloading enormous packages of toilet paper and paper towels for our office, she smiled and said, “You sure you’re going to use all of this?” When she couldn’t issue a free gift card with purchase for all those paper products I was getting she said, “Baby, I just don’t like how they’re treating my customers like that. It isn’t right.” She called a manager over and still nothing was working and I had to be on my way. I told her not to worry about it and when we finished up she said, “Now, baby, you enjoy the rest of your day and I want you to stay warm out there.”

Today I got in Mary’s line and she looked at me and said, “Now, baby, what’s wrong? You look sad.” “On no,” I said, “I’m fine. I mean as fine as you can be when the whole world is on fire.” She looked at me, I looked at her, and then I said, “I hate him. I want him to have a Big Mac and croak because if I have to listen to his whiny little voice and watch him wave his whiny little fingers one more day I’m going to start screaming and never stop.” Mary nodded and said, “I know exactly who you’re talking about and I want you to know that this isn’t who we are. We didn’t vote for this, now did we?” Well, no, but here we are. We chatted some more, Mother Mary full of kind wisdom and hope. I told her the comforter and table runner were going to be a separate transaction and when she totaled it I said I’d skip on the table runner because who do I think I am decorating for every holiday? Mary said, “Hold on. I think there might be some kind of sale on this,” and she waved her magic wand and my table runner went from $20 to $3. I low-keyed hollered in joy and Mary said, “Now you listen to me, baby. That man is going to meet his maker and he’ll have to answer for a lot of things and I think you and I know how that’s going to go. We’re going to be okay just you watch.” And with that she waved me off until the next time.

I love stories. I love reading them, hearing them, writing them, and playing a part in them like this morning with Mary. Fifteen years ago today I posted my first story on A Speckled Trout. It had seven views. Many years later I had a story that had over 10,000 views. What connects and what doesn’t is a roll of the dice. Often times there were long gaps between posts and I regularly toyed with calling it quits. By some kind of divine intervention I didn’t and am still in this space that was named for what my dad always called me.

Today was just an errand until it became a story – the caveat being a black woman calling me ‘baby’ over and over which feels like being annointed by Mother Teresa. If you’re lucky enough for that to happen then you must believe that you have been blessed. I have been many times over.

Thank you for coming along.

***This fall I was contacted about doing an interview about my blog and last month it was published. It was such a privilege to be included in a conversation about writing. You can read it here.***