Lion and Magic Boy

It would seem that I have not yet learned a lesson about consumer-crazed traffic despite my last trip down into the Mall Zone, so today I once again took my life into my hands and went to Trader Joe’s to stock up on bagels and organic free-range chicken stock (I still don’t get why this is funny), Whole Foods for cage-free organic eggs (are those funny too?), and to Petsmart for this attractive addition to our household decor.

While at Petsmart, I decided to taunt myself with the fact that I could look all I wanted at cats yet I could not, under pain of scorn and tears from children denied the pleasure of choosing “their” “own” cat(s), take one home, so I found the adoption area and made the acquaintance of several very cute and wholly adoptable cats. I did the same on Sunday, but like I said before the place was overrun with people clutching wild-eyed kittens,and I never had a chance to really get to know any of the cats, but there was a cute pair named Joey and Chandler there that I really liked. Ross and Rachel? Also very cute, but might have already been adopted. Phoebe? Nah, she just gets left out in the cold. Again. Apparently there never even WAS a Phoebe. If I were Lisa Kudrow? I’d totally be bitter right now.

NOTE TO PETSMART CAT-ADOPTION LADY: I didn’t actually notice that I had those white iPod cords still glued to my ears until after I got back in the car. Was that why you spoke so loudly? (I thought it might scare the cats, but no, they liked you. It was me who scared them, which is probably Not a Good Sign.) And I only found you just-a-little creepy. Go back to your “babies” now. (Do you sleep there too?)

Sometimes I am wholly unprepared to deal with the outside world, you know? I mean, there are situations where you expect things to go a certain way, mainly based on your previous experiences. When putting gas in your car, for instance, you don’t expect it to spurt all over your Manolo Blahniks while the guy across the way casually tosses his cigarette butt in your direction. That might put a damper on your day and would certainly affect your timely arrival to your 9 am meeting. Nor do you, while opening your mailbox, expect a seven-inch-long green male toad bearing a jeweled dagger and the key to the Emerald City to hop out of it.

So when I go into, say, Barnes & Noble, I anticipate my interaction with anyone in there with me to go pretty much according to a certain script. Today at B&N, I make my choices and wait in line for the next available clerk. Check. I am beckoned forward when it is my turn. Check. I am asked whether I am a member and am given the spiel for becoming one, which I politely decline. Check. At this point I am thinking of asking the slightly-harried olderish clerk whether he knows my dad, who up until early last spring worked at that very Barnes & Noble.

He glances at my intended purchases, which consist of the latest issue of Writer’s Digest magazine, the 2007 Writer’s Market, and several Moleskine notebooks.

“So, what are your influences?”

Influences? Oh, the writing? What tipped you off?

I am taken aback. I clearly did not expect to be quizzed by a Barnes & Noble employee. I stutter. I stammer. Finally I fall back on the old standard, cuteness (it totally worked in high school): I beam brightly at him. “Everyone,” I say pertly. I am glad to be off the hook.

A look of disgust crosses his face. I have disappointed, and mightily. “That answer wouldn’t fly in my writing workshops,” he says darkly.

So why are you working at Barnes & Noble if you’re such a writer?

I hastily try to come up with the names of some authors I don’t hate. Influences? Faugh. Just give me names here. I finally come up with two. “Well, I like Amy Tan,” I begin. I am hesitant. What am I going to say here? I’m a blogger?

“And?” His eyes glint. I do not ever want to be in his writing workshop. Ever. He has bad teeth.

“Uh, Theodore Dreiser?” I throw out the only name I can come up with besides Amalah.

“Um. Interesting. NEXT!”

I am dismissed. I failed The Test.

What’s interesting is that as I got in my car, I couldn’t help think that this somehow had been a message: I should think about what my influences are if I’m serious about being a writer.

Who are your influences?