Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Sunday, Jan. 18, 2004 - 10:20 p.m.

So, I went to see Something's Gotta Give last night, and it was mostly very funny, though I confess that at one point I realized this was the kind of movie my mom likes, and that I was perilously close to slipping into my mother's demographic merely by my presence in the theatre, but there were plenty of other people there in their 30's too, so I hope that keeps me out of the middle-aged club at least a little while. Not that there's anything wrong with being middle-aged, but that does not mean I ever want to have to admit that I am, even to myself. No, I am a kid at heart and ever will be, damn it. The film is definitely pitched to my mother and her peers, but it's still funny, and I love when Jack does comedy. I love it even more when Jack makes fun of the Jack persona when he does comedy. And this love story was waaaay better than As Good As it Gets, the other romantic comedy Jack has done (I don't really count The Witches of Eastwick). And the crying thing went on a little too long, which I was okay with, merely registering that they were overdoing it somewhat, but the guy next to me had great difficulty with it, heaving sighs and fidgeting in his chair. I could appreciate it, though, being a girl and all, because women really do cry at goofy times and with huge, long, drawnout sobs like that when they are grieving a love. So aside from the fact that it went on a bit too long, it was pretty funny. And it was really cool to see parts of Paris in it where I spent a lot of time this summer. I even recognized the Place de Voges, which I had lunch near on many occasions. :) The only bad part was whatever godforsaken garbage the people behind me snuck in and ate, which smelled really, really bad. Really bad. Like, rotten eggs and sewage bad. It was some kind of spiced meat, that I could determine. But it was truly, unbelievably foul-smelling, so please, people, if you sneak food into a movie theatre, for Pete's sake, please make it something that at least smells normal to most people, and not like you cooked whatever the hell it was steeped in sauerkraut and sulphurous water from Yellowstone. Your fellow movie goers will appreciate it.

Holy foghorn, Batman.
I went to the grocery store tonight and spent an entire hour hounded by a small child constantly shouting "Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Daddy..."

You get the general idea.

The problem is that Whole Foods - at least, the one by my house - is not a particularly large store. I could probably stand at the deli case on the south end and shout TB's name, and he could easily hear me down there at the veggies on the north end. So a small child chanting for her father's attention can easily become annoying, especially when said child is in your immediate vicinity the entire shopping experience. I tried to get away, my friends. Oh, I tried. I left the veggies and headed down to the deli. I pored over cheese for ages, contrasting the merits of various brands of goat cheese until goat cheese ceased to have any meaning in the universe or to sound even remotely yummy. I studied the imported beer case and tossed about the presence of Czech beer for far longer than would be absolutely necessary, even for the most enthusiastic of imported beer afficianados. And then when the small, insistently loud child and her deaf parents wandered down to my end of the store, I went back to the produce cases to pick out my veggies. Unfortunately, the small child's parents had forgotten their veggies, so they returned to the veggie section. I endured daddydaddydaddy for as long as possible, then fled to the middle part of the store for canned tomatoes.

Alas, the small child and her parents were also in need of canned goods. Sadly, everything else I needed lay within 1 aisle of that accursed zone, and still the shriek of daddydaddydaddy continued to ring in my ears all thru the perusing and choosing of crackers, ice cream, hamburger, croutons, bread, and the pleading with the grocery store order guy to please, please, please order plain old boring, regular saltine crackers. ::sigh:: With joy, I realized I had forgotten to pick up something, so I returned to the bakery in the far southeast corner of the store, where I felt sure the raucous sound of blenders from the nearby juice counter would drown out the child, whom by now I had grown to despise, and her parents, whom I wanted to throttle, because while they may have grown deaf to a sound they clearly hear 50,000,000 times a day, *I* have not, not having had the practice in the 5 or so years said child has clearly been screaming the mantra daddydaddydaddy. I wanted to scream at her hideous fucking parents to either pay the friggin' kid some attention, teach her she can not always be the center of attention, or at least, for GOD'S SAKE, tell the friggin creature to USE HER INSIDE VOICE. For the love of Mike.

Unfortunately, I had trouble locating the crostini. The store seeks to enliven their customers' lives by moving items around fairly often, and the crostini were cleverly tucked into a basket on the pie table, amid cherry, apple, and a few other types of baked dessert. And while I was looking for them, the small child's parents discovered they were in need of a trip to the ready-made cold case in the deli. Right. Next. To. Me.

I searched desperately for the crostini, tears welling in my eyes with the superhuman strength it took not to kill the man standing 2 feet away from me, gazing blindly into space while his wife meandered past the cold case and pondered green bean casserole and potato latkes, and the small child stood tugging at his jacket sleeve, shrieking daddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddy.

AHA! Crostini! Thank you, God! I sent a heartfelt prayer up to the Big Man and snatched a package greedily from the basket, racing to the checkout counter, telling myself that whatever else happened, in 15 minutes, I'd be out of that store.

But not before the small child and her parents came and got behind me in line. Daddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddy. I love you, Daddy. Daddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddy. I looked at the bagger boy and pled with him to please hurry. He looked back and me and gave me a grim smile. "I know," he said. We bonded in that moment.

And then I went home and told TB in absolutely no uncertain, 100% non-negotiable terms, "We are never having children."

Peace out,
Katie

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