Nice Try but No Cigar

When Activity Director was a no-show at management’s Thankful Celebration and a woman who introduced herself as her supervisor walked around, greeted us, I had speculated out loud to my tablemates that Activity Director was being replaced.

"Oh no" said someone at my table. "She’s just substituting for her".

Most of the residents I’ve come in contact with around here are surface or below surface level in their vision, can’t see beyond what appears before them. Naive would be a good word to describe them and they often surprise me with their lack of understanding even the basics at a deeper level.

Makes it difficult to get close to anyone of them, because I have to dumb myself down, be careful what I say, how I say it. Consequently, I mostly play stupid, just listen, let them talk.

So it wasn’t much of a surprise that no one saw what I saw … that Activity Director was likely being replaced.

But then, Negative Nelly popped up and wisely stated "That’s how it starts".

That right there made me like her, as I could see she was different than the others. She was more than just a surface individual, so I said, "She’s right. That is how it starts" and left it at that because no one else was buying it.

Sure enough, I was included in a mass message from Activity Director yesterday, which message stated "My supervisors have switched me to a different property effective immediately".

I wonder if that’s because of the complaints about Activity Director’s poor attitude and years of perpetual screwups.

Text of the message went on to say "I wish they would have told me where I would have had time to say bye ... Oh and the baby is a boy!"

Overlooking the poor sentence structure, that’s interesting that she was given no notice. As for the baby .... what baby? Was she pregnant or did she just have a baby? I didn’t know she gotten married, or is this a baby daddy kinda thing?

At any rate, because one could never count on her showing up when a Craft Day was on calendar, I stopped going. Now that she's out, I may go back.

As for the baby boy, I’ll get details this afternoon on what that's about, as it’s another day, another party.

Talker called a little while ago to invite me to a birthday party being held for her in the Community Room at 3:00.

Do I want to attend?

No disrespect to Talker, but NO. I’m partied out.

Will I attend?

With Talker herself going to the trouble of phoning and inviting me, I feel I must.

At least I can get details on what now former Activity Director means about a baby boy.

I had a strange encounter at Sprouts this past Monday.

As I exited the car, was walking across the parking lot towards the store’s entrance, out the corner of my eye I spotted a man over to my right seeming also to be heading towards the entrance and checking me out.

It just registered briefly that I was being looked at in a seemingly admiring way, then I thought no more about it until rounding the corner of an isle in Sprouts and literally pushing my cart into him.

He didn’t have a cart, had no items in his hand, and it didn’t take long for me to realize he’d been tracking me.

After having spotted me in the aisle, he must have been checking me out further AND, when he saw me preparing to come out of the isle, positioned himself at the corner, where I couldn’t miss him ─ almost ran into him.

Smooth operator that he was, as I moved to go around him "Good morning" he said, then calmly lifted his arm, looked at his watch and continued "Or should I say good afternoon?"

Nice try buddy, but no cigar because focused on trying to remember what else I needed, as I was shopping without a list, I off handedly replied "Yes. Thank you" as I continued around and past him.

WHAT!?

That was a silly reply to "good morning", but my mind was otherwise occupied.

I don’t know where he went after that dragging his deflated tail behind him or what he did but I later felt bad that he’d gone through so much trouble, and I didn’t even smile and say “Good evening” back.

Thinking about it later, I pondered how difficult it must be for a man to approach, make the acquaintance of, introduce himself to a woman in the wild that he’d like to get to know without coming across as some kind of weirdo stalker.