Story of the Day 10/16/2011 #2

Sarah and I made a trip to the grocery store.

We had to.

Despite the fact that the refrigerator and freezer are stuffed to the gills with food- potato kugel, Greek onion and cheese pies, tiramisu, carrot soufflé- there is nothing to eat.

For lunch.

Tomorrow.

At school.



In other words, we were out of bread to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.



So we bought bread, and three apples.

We had apples, but they weren’t perfectly fresh, so Sarah picked some out to take with her for her lunch, and we were standing in the checkout line.



Sarah signed, “ I know the cashier”, and “ I know the cashier in the next line, also.”


This is a hazard now that Sarah attends a large public school in our area. We run into people that she has seen at school.



Back when Sarah attended the Deaf School, a school whose high school had about 100 students drawn from all over the state, the incidence of running into someone she knew from school at the local grocery store was almost zilch. It happened, once a year. Now it happens every single time we go.



When she first transferred, and she first started seeing people she recognized, our forays to the store became stealth mode operations. We would have to keep our heads down as we browsed the aisles for mayonnaise, and pick the checkout line closest to the exit, and try to avoid being seen.



I can’t blame Sarah. She has inherited socially awkward genes from both sides of the family.



Fortunately, now that she has been at the public school for over a year and a half, she can tolerate being seen and noticed.

And, , for the most part, she is safe, because she s Deaf and they can’t actually do anything as mundane as talk to her.

At least not and expect a response.

And since I sign when I am with her ( uh, if you haven’t figured this out, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for me to talk, since she couldn’t hear me) , these school contacts usually assume that I am also deaf, so they don’t speak to me, either.

So, I am sheltered by her .



And, while we were standing in line, I told her how much I appreciated it.



You see, there is something about this chubby, middle-aged, sloppily attired woman that attracts a certain type of guy, every time I go grocery shopping.



No, they are not trying to pick me up.

Apparently, I look motherly, or at least not dangerous, and all of these guys who are recently widowed or divorced and thrust into the “ I have to cook dinner” mode come up to me and ask me all sorts of rather detailed questions.

Like, “ This is salmon. I’ve had salmon before and I like it. My wife used to cook it. How do I cook it?”

Of course, there are many ways to cook salmon, so I have to ask how they had it, before.
This usually elicits a response along the lines of, “Um, it was cooked.”

Which is good, but not especially helpful. So I usually give a general description of oven temperature and time and what to do to keep it moist, and then offer one or two tips on seasoning it.

And then there is the inevitable second question, which is usually, “ Can I cook a potato in the pan with it?”

With it?

“ No, and the potato takes longer, microwave it and just heat it up to be warm when your salmon is ready.”



At least I am a little helpful with this kind of a question, but the “ how do I make a pork chop?” is a bit beyond my kosher cooking skills.



At any rate, when I go grocery shopping with Sarah, I suddenly become, by association, “deaf”, and therefore no one comes up and asks me anything. This could be because they don’t’ know any sign language, but it could also be, as Sarah and I have noticed, that most people think Deaf people bite.

Well, at least we figure that is why they walk very wide around us, and hesitate to get into the checkout lien behind us, even if the other line is quite a bit longer.



The really sad thing about this, not the aversion to those “ Deafies” who bite, but the steady stream of recipe-deprived guys ( and it really does happen often), and which is somehow obscured by something about my appearance,

is that I can’t cook for shit.