Today I drank a pint of coffee at Walker's, which is four
fewer ounces than a Venti at Starbucks, so save your shock! Just kidding. I'm
sure you weren't shocked. But the drink does look fairly colossal, I think, sitting there in that giant beer mug. I
went to Walker's in order to finish a take-home final, and the booth I sat at, unlike
most booths at Walker's, didn't have its own electrical outlet, which wasn't a problem
initially because I arrived with my laptop fully charged. (I wonder if it's only to my generation that nothing I've said so far seems like a non-sequitur.
I had a final; I needed a charged laptop.) Even though I arrived with a full
battery charge, I worried a bit that the battery life might get low before I would be able to finish my assignment, so I glanced at the booth adjacent to mine, where a
blonde girl who was probably pretty sat, and I noticed that her booth had an
outlet. This blonde girl also had a computer (everyone everywhere always has a
computer), but it was turned off, and so I assumed that meant that the outlet
would remain available should I need it, in which case I figured that I could simply ask the
girl if I could borrow use of the outlet at her booth. This is a plan I made as an immediate thought process,
unlike this extended summary of it. So I started to work on my final, and after about 15 minutes the
blonde girl looked in my direction and said, "Excuse me?" I didn't
immediately acknowledge her because it didn't seem like she had any reason to
bother me. She had a plug, I didn't: I should be the one bothering her. I don't mean that mean-spiritedly: it's just that I didn't realize she was addressing me. Had I had an electrical
outlet at my booth and she had not had one at hers, I would've acknowledged her "Excuse me?" immediately, because I in all likelihood would have already noted
that she might come to a point where she would need to use the outlet at my booth. Once I
realized that the girl was indeed addressing me, I looked up from my assignment and
at her face, and I heard her say, "I'm going to the bathroom, so could you
just keep an eye on my stuff?" This is not an odd request statistically
speaking, but practically speaking it is VERY odd. Was she asking that I
intervene should someone attempt to steal her things? She looked rich. What does that mean? It means she dressed rich.
What does that mean? It means I've seen her clothes on mannequins in the
windows of boutiques downtown. It means she wore a decorative cardigan, the
kind that makes no sense, the kind without sleeves. It's fine if she's rich. But if she's rich, then protecting
her computer from a thief is not an inherently worthwhile thing to do. Things
that are inherently worthwhile can, and maybe even should, be done for free. Almost everything else is a job, and jobs should pay. (There is overlap that I am knowingly not addressing.) Am
I suggesting that this girl should pay me to watch her things? Yes, yes I am.
If she wants me to intervene in a robbery of her goods, I think she should pay
me. If she were poor and wore a real cardigan, the kind with sleeves, watching
her things would amount to preserving some small piece of justice in the world. But that didn't appear to be the case. She asked, "Could
you just keep an eye on my stuff?", and I wanted to say, "I am a mother.
When I'm not at Walker's for an hour to do schoolwork, I am at home, expending
all of my energies cultivating a human life. I do not care about your
machine." It's true. I spend my life feeding, cuddling, and reading to Graham, and
trying, at the same time, to make sure he develops a sense of humor, empathy,
and, with walks along the river and underneath trees, love and respect for the natural world.
In Sweden this is a job that, at least for a short period,
pays. I used to feel guilty about getting student loans. Now I feel like I'm
just getting a paycheck for being a mother. I just have to give the paycheck back after I graduate.
Aron is going out with his old man friend tonight
for three pints, but I think after he has his third he'll probably feel like
having a fourth. It's $2 pint night at Copper Creek, so it won't break the bank
any more than it's already always broken. What makes me feel like a jerk is my desire
to remind Aron that Sunday is Mother's Day. I'm considering my phrasing options, which I've narrowed down to two: 1. Enjoy your beery evening. Oh, by the way, Sunday is Mother's Day; or, 2. Oh, three pints. That's half a pint for every month I've been a mother, unless you count the nine that I was pregnant. Aron actually already knows that Sunday is Mother's Day, and he actually has also already gotten me a very fabulous gift (Alision Bechdel's new memoir, Are You My Mother?). It's just that I want a break from the baby that involves pints. But even during my one hour at Walker's I missed the baby like crazy: I feel full of dread when we're apart, and I always get a tummy ache about it. But that's just stress, and stress is a problem that the pints are likely to solve.
Just be nice, Amy!
No comments:
Post a Comment