My Real Very Own Strange Shopping Adventure: An Epiphany Story

In one of my disspirited spells last fall, some of you provided helpful feedback indicating that you like to hear me speak from what poet Sharon Olds calls my "real spot." (Well, I don't mean to say that anyone used that phrase — no one did, as far as I can recall — but that was the gist of how I heard some of your suggestions.)

I tend to go along day by day uploading material to this site without ever taking time to talk much about what I'm doing, feeling, experiencing — in part, because I fear the trap of narcissism as I blog. But since you've asked, I'll tell. 

Here's an experience I recounted to Facebook friends yesterday that demands some kind of headline — "My Real Very Own Strange Shopping Adventure"? — and which people seemed to enjoy hearing about:

My strange shopping experience: Steve and I go shopping today. Tiring (as I always do) of shopping, I go and sit in the car, front passenger seat. I fiddle with my cell phone. I see from the corner of my eye a woman walk out of the store. Next thing I know, there she is beside me in the driver's seat of our car. I say, "I think you have the wrong," and she shrieks and says, "This has never happened to me." I laugh uproariously, because it HAS happened to me a number of times: I've hopped into the wrong car and then wondered why someone else is sitting in MY car. She hops out, says, "Don't tell your wife," and I laugh even more uproariously. Then she gets into her car and drives off.

Please don't say I didn't give you a Twelfth Night present this year!