I guess the soldier’s nemesis sensed the threat because he sent him to here to Denver for the weekend.

“I can meet you in Nebraska on the way here if you want,” I said. “We can stay there for one night and then follow each other back here.”

“Okay.”

“But if I do, I will not have a chance to grocery shop or anything else like that. I won’t be prepared to cook. I mean I just won’t have anything like that figured.”

“Well I’d rather see you as soon as I can and don’t worry about the grocery store. I’ll go to the grocery store with you, P. I don’t mind, it’ll be like old times. You can balance the bags on the back of the motorcycle,” he said.

“Oh, okay. Okay then.”

I got off the phone and twenty minutes later it hit me. First, I am an enigma in the grocery store(s). I go there a lot for a variety of reasons; I am notorious because of my kids but most of all I never go there with a man. I am sort of this Venus / Neptune disenfranchised person which of course I actually am in real life too.

But you get the idea. I am the kind of person others make up stories about. “Oh, she’s dressed well today,” followed by, “Here she come in her pajamas again, what the hell?”

Now I do talk loudly on the phone at times when I shop so I am not totally mysterious but absolutely the men (particularly in the produce departments) are very fond of me as are the meat department guys and can you imagine this?

The soldier is going to go in there and glare at everyone like they’ve never been glared at before, and the women?

Well the women like me too, mostly because I like them. I worked for Frito Lay for years and have a total affinity with the grocery store. I like the concept of frequent trips to the store for fresh food (it’s Italian!) and all I can say is people are going to talk come Monday. I wonder if anyone will ask who he is directly?

Nah, probably not. Come Monday I bet we we’ll all pretend none of this ever happened.