50 Conversations in Alaska: 49/50
At Safeway, I grabbed a white wine under $10 and queued in the 4-bodied line.
It’s always long lines here- island pace? Atlanta would be restless, Chicago would gripe, New York would lose it’s shit.
The gentleman ahead of me is wearing a sage green polo and shorts. He must think it’s warm today, but it was in the 60s all day and dripping rain. He had a bulk supply of Natural Light beer, which is universally considered disgusting. I’ve affectionately been referred to as Nati Light, to my dismay. At least name me after a dignified pilsner.
He turned and said “I like that feather. That’s nice.”
“Really, that’s really nice. You could do a lot with that in town.”
“Oh yeah? Well thank you, yeah I like it.”
I’m silently deciding if he’s a meandering drunk, lucid, or just weird. Or spring variety of all three. But people are chatty in this town and not always odd. Maybe if the lines were fast they wouldn’t be chatty.
“See I’m native, so I think the feather is really cool.”
“Oh really? Yeah I like it a lot, thank you” (making as concentrated and as genuine a smile as possible, because I do really like the feather, especially since it’s new and I got another compliment today, I am excited that it’s going over well).
I turn back to my phone and begin to read a “group me” message thread. He turns again, notes my phone, turns back around. He turns again: “Be careful or that thing might drive you to drink.” I’m clearly holding a phone and white wine.
I chuckle and say “I know right” and he says “I’m just kidding.”
He turns forward, turns back “You know they say that we are losing the art of conversation because of reliance on cell phones.” Okay so he’s lucid and chatty. But the 24 pack of Nati Lights is still cause for question as to his sophistication.
“I said I know you’re right, it’s very sad.” I look down and pause. “But at the same time might be like saying that the art of letter writing is lost because of email, and it really isn’t.” He said “That’s true, you’re right.”
“See, you’re proving me wrong. You haven’t lost the art of conversation.” I said “I’m trying! I do what I can.”
He smiles. “See I’m working on cleaning fish with my daughter today” and he shows me his hands. He stretches his hand wide and shows the dark colors on his skin, from cleaning the fish.
He said “We need enough beer to clean the fish. I go through one of these in 4 days.”
I said “24? in 4 days?” (It came off more judgmentally than I meant, it’s just, that’s not going very light on the Nati..).
He counted it out “Well, I guess, in 5 days.”
He checked out and left for his daughter and fish cleaning.
I checked out with my white wine.
