December 7, 2012
Friday

From 8:05 to 3:30, . . . she is Anne Tyler: writer.  Monday through Thursday.  Friday is for “groceries and snow tires.”
— Marguerite Michaels, American journalist, in a 1977 profile of novelist Anne Tyler

In my dreams, I carry an idea of myself as someone who has regular habits that lead to outer productivity and inner calm. I am not as disciplined (nor as successful) as Anne Tyler. In my vision, I reserve Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays as fiction work days, Thursdays for Faith with Friends and “other projects,” and Fridays for “groceries and milling around.” I shop, visit places or attend events that might be useful in my research, go the library and the doctor and the waxing salon. In recent months I have not been able to stick to this schedule, mostly because of having to attend to Ron’s medical care, a duty which fed into my natural haphazardness and gave me a good and honorable excuse for not getting a draft of my novel anywhere near completion.

As Ron continues to need me less, I am getting back to “normal,” and this week went pretty well as I worked on the novel and got into Christmas preparations. Thus did today become one for “groceries and milling about.”

My first stop was Books-A-Million, the chain that has taken over the space that was once Borders. I don’t go there very often, preferring the Barnes & Noble on the other side of the river, but that was too far, since I had to also fit my out-and-aboutness around an appointment closer to the BAM.

My purpose in seeking a bookstore was to take a look at the book I mentioned yesterday, The Joy of Hate. I am certainly not going to buy this book, but I would like to read a chapter or two, so I know more fully what I am talking about should it come up for discussion again among my conservative friends. But walking into BAM felt like an assault. The music was too loud, the items available near the entrance too kitschy, and the clerks who approached me too earnest in their expressed desire to help me find something. And I think the poster advertising an appearance and book signing next week by former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum made me feel that I was not in a friendly place. I’m not a fan.

I was really really hungry, so I did the sensible thing. I went to Subway for a sandwich and chips in a portion size and a composition I could be sure of. Refreshed, I had about 30 minutes before I had to leave that area for my appointment.

I crossed the parking lot to a Hallmark store, armed with a coupon good for $5 off a $10 purchase. I quickly found what I was looking for — a pack of the money/check holder cards Ron likes to use. They were $4.99.What else did I need, I wondered. I chose a pack of tissue paper in two colors, for wrapping the two different crèche set figurines in their storage tub, so I know at a glance which set pieces go where. (See? That efficiency thing is coming back.) I needed one more thing to make the $10, and I approached the desk to ask if they all had to be Hallmark brand merchandise.

The woman ahead of me plunked down a small box and said, “Well, this is certainly not worth $15!”

The clerk forwned slightly. “Do you want me to put it back for you?” she asked.

“No!” the customer said. (The first thing you learn in fiction writing is to avoid any speech tag except “said,” but “barked” might have been appropriate here.) “I have to buy this! It’s a tradition! For my godchild! But it’s certainly not worth $15! Look at this!”

She opened the box and the little ornament pictured at left fell out. “This is nothing but cardboard and fluff!” she said. She picked it up and pulled the star up, exposing a cone of cardboard. I was afraid she was going to tear it apart so we could all see just how precisely cardboard-and-fluff it was. “It is not worth $15!”

“Would you like to choose something different?”

By this time the customer’s cheeks were red, and she was clutching the ornament. “No! I have to have this one. It’s a TRADITION! For my godchild! I just want to know why it costs $15! It is certainly not worth $15! I could make it for $3!”

At this point, I would have informed her that there was a very nice craft store with lots of cardboard and fluff only a few hundred feet across the mall, and could she please go there and never come back here. (This is one of the reasons I am not in retail.) The clerk, obviously a better person than I, instead drew forth a card, handed it to the woman, and said “Here is Hallmark’s customer service number. You should probably tell them.”

I was trying to figure out what the tradition was. A Hallmark ornament marked specifically and at the same time generically for a godchild? A lamb? A 2012 limited release? My mother had a godchild for whom she bought, twice a year, a gold charm for the girl’s bracelet. 14K gold. And every single time my mother would fuss about how expensive this girl’s tastes were, about how her family was spoiling her. And I wondered, even at the age of ten or twelve, why my mother would purchase two gold charms a year that she probably could not afford easily, and work herself up into a froth of anger every single time. Was it some kind of godmother tradition? My own godmother gave me lovely things — I remember with particular fondness an ostrich-skin makeup case — that I know cost a lot, and I hoped she didn’t hate doing it.

“Would you like to use my coupon?” I said to the woman. “It would bring the cost down to $10.” I really didn’t need the colorful tissue to be Hallmark brand, and buying the cards alone would be the $5 I had expected to spend.

The woman just glared at me. “This is a TRADITION!” she said.

I was now two for two on a random act of kindness sort of backfiring on me. As with the man who didn’t want my place in line in 2006, the woman appeared affronted by my offer, and I regretted making it, because it seemed to make her feel worse.

The woman paid for her ornament, turned, and left the store. I didn’t want to burden the clerk with a question that she’d have to think about, so I grabbed another pack of tissue paper (you can never have enough tissue paper), and presented my purchases and my coupon.

“You did a good job there, being so patient,” I said to her. “I feel sorry for the customer. She must have many problems. But I feel a little better about myself, knowing I am not the most obnoxious person in the mall right now. I’m glad I came in here today.”

I hope there is at least a little good will attached to the fluffy lamb and its cardboard insides. After all, spreading cheer this time of year is a TRADITION!