a common lot

she opened the door to her vehicle and put her child into a shopping cart. it was small. her legs crossed slightly making for several dips to thread her legs into the two holes for legs. do you want to know what kind of vehicle it was? was it a car? was it a minivan? was it an SUV?

if i tell you that you already know some things whether you know them or not. you know if this woman is old or young, you know her socioeconomic status, you know whether there are stickers on the bumper or windshield or finger smudges from the older children closing the trunk or hatch and you might even know what color her hair and eyes are.

where is she? is the sun shining? is she at a waldbaums or a piggly wiggly or a certain unique grocery store? is it raining is it snowing is the hurricane ablowing?

she could be any of these places but she will be at none of these places. here she is, in the parking lot in your mind threading her childs legs through the shopping cart seat.

she is surrounded by tundra and the baby's legs are frostbitten under her old navy jeans and when they get warm they will be dead and so will her hands be dead also.

just kidding.

but if i don't say it's raining, it isn't raining. you're here in this with me, and i make the rules. you just read. do you want specifics? yes you do. or else you're reading some fucked up boring quasi-postmodern Mad Libs by some fucked up boring man. and not even that fucked up.

do you want rain? well it isn't raining.

the sun isn't even shining. it's not scorching hot, it's just a plain day in one of those months where the weather isn't a character and doesn't foreshadow anything.

here is a woman and her daughter. she is pushing her daughter in a cart to the front of a grocery store to buy food. the sun is an inch or two above the treeline but not moving very quickly. her hair is shoulder length and manageable having been cut for the first time since the baby, her first. a good haircut put a little something in her she has been needing since the baby. she looks at herself and thinks she is deflated and used like the balloons from her baby shower. her old clothes fit but she still wants to wear yoga pants as often as possible. is she finished with idle meaningless beautification or does she relish in the attention of strangers?

when her hands close on the cart to push it there is a film of some sort she does not recognize. she continues to the door with a wipe of her hands on her thighs rather than deal with another leg rethreading. this is a small victory. her husband would pick on her for being too princessy, but after diapers vomit and diapers anything that doesn't smell can stay wiped at the top of her pants until laundry is done. she looks at her cuticles and thinks a manicure would have been nice with the haircut. a mani\pedi. what is annie doing that she can't give me a mani\pedi? has it really been a year? i can't really afford it but what if i think of it as an investment into my sanity? i was torn in two by an 8lb 4oz sack of meat and, unlike men, my hormones are in my head. let me live let me be still young with this cart and this child who is growing quickly behind my back let me feel longed for and wanted instead of disregarded. i am going to paint my nails the color of passion and if the world does not notice i will snap my fingers and drum my nails on whatever table i can find.

she enters the store and streaks through the aisles to the nail polish. she finds a good bright red like a fire engine. she thinks about sparkles but doens't want to overdo it. she will paint her nails like a fire engine and maybe the baby's too just for fun. she shops offhandedly before pointing her cart to a cashier she is two other carts from meeting. when she thinks nobody is looking she kisses her child on the forehead and slips the nail polish into her pocket. she is young and pretty and the world will not begrudge her the simple pleasure of stolen nail polish like the sixteen year-old who never saw herself with red nails and a cart with a baby. this ends with her dreaming about how she will put the nail polish on her baby's little tiny fingers.

she will use a q-tip.