Sometimes things happen to me where I walk away shaking my head thinking, “only me.” Yet those are often the times when no one else is around to witness it. This past weekend Mike and I went to Pittsburgh to visit his family and to see our old city and some of our friends. On Monday we decided to drive around the city to hit up some of our old favorite spots in between our visits with good friends. We had breakfast at Pamela’s and got some Pittsburgh Popcorn at the strip district, stopped in Oakland to see our old Alma mater, bought bubble tea, and walked around some shops on the South Side and North Oakland.
Of course on the top of our priority list was Mike’s old comic shop on South Craig St. As he gleefully ran across the street like a little boy seeing his super hero for the first time, I decided to browse one of the old used bookstores I used to go to, Caliban’s Books. After I was done perusing the shelves I headed towards the door and an employee was stacking books into a large cardboard box for another customer. The box was sitting in the narrow hallway between the pay counter and the man loading the box. It was blocking my only way out. I stopped with my bubble tea in hand, hesitated briefly, and looked down at the box for a moment then back over at the book stacker man kneeling down beside it. We made eye contact, both smiling awkwardly at each other, and after a few seconds I said “excuse me.” He looked at the box, considered the situation in a thought bubble above his head and finally said, “I think you’ll have to step over it...”
...Excuse me? Step over it?? Oh really...
I looked at the big box, glanced down at my skirt, and back again to the book stacker man. Smiling a bit nervously I replied, “Um, I don’t really think I’m going to be able to step over that box in a skirt...” He looked at his box, looked down at my legs, slurred a few incomprehensible words, then stared blankly at the side of the box. I was tired of playing chicken so I took the liberty of solving this situation on my own as I put out my right flip flopped foot and slowly nudged the large box to the right closer and closer to the book stacker dude. He stood up looking somewhat dumbfounded and was still unable to give me a helping hand although I was clearly not going to step over that box. As I made enough room to squeeze through, the entertained customer standing by happily opened the door with a cheery grin and a friendly nod of his head. I thanked him, slid past the big box apologizing to no one in particular (maybe it was to the box), and laughed at myself on my way out the door.
Are you kidding me? Did he really just ask me to step over it instead of sliding the box to the side and avoiding that awkward moment altogether? And did I really just make the obvious fact that I was wearing a skirt that much more obvious? Um, okay, then please sir...may I hold on to your shoulder as I attempt to do this task as gracefully as possible? Yeah, I don’t think so, sorry buddy. (Insert head shake here). How embarrassing.
As I walked across the street I hoped that at least dad was looking down chuckling at me being me. I can just hear him making the “tsk” sound while shaking his head saying “Kate...” but giving away his smirk with his big cute dimples. As painful as it is sometimes to always have thoughts of dad with me wherever I go, it is also comforting at silly moments like these. Moments where I can still picture his reaction, his words, his cute faces and his little quirks. I guess I know now that I won’t have to laugh at those stupid me moments alone anymore since dad will always be with me wherever I am.
