Lots of things seem to happen at my grocery store and this one hasn’t happened in a long time, since maybe when I was in my early twenties.

I’m getting my groceries for my week at work, clocking the college age (or older) hotties: workers, skaters, punks, etc. and occasionally somebody clocks me back. Hard. Really hard. Repeated glances. Again. Again. Again. Okay, I’m getting cruised.

Just like that old ska song by Symarip (changing she to he), there he was, swinging down the high streets, yeah, his hair cut short, boots set firm, I couldn’t believe my eyes, like a story out of a book. He was height, my weight, my size, he wore braces and blue jeans. Okay, no braces and blue jeans, but damn close, he had on big docs, Dickies shorts and was very SoCal skinhead.

Raised eyebrows and a smile in passing, then in the line turning around to catch my eye 3 times, leaving line with his Schlitz and turning around to say good-bye, then waiting outside for some reason to say hello to me and I just tell him ‘see ya round’. Lame. I know I’m on my ‘no sex’, year long challenge, but… but… grrr!

I get in my car and loop the parking lot, scrambling to pull out one of my cards with my number on it. Damn! No number on these? Argh! Grab a pen. Fuck! Purple and exploded – ALL OVER MY HAND! FUCK! Are you kidding me? Write. Wipe my hand. Oh no… he’s going behind the grocery store. Back around into the rear parking lot, parking… where did he go? I see him over by the dumpster, drinking his beer.

I march on over and say hello and hand him my card and he asks a question that takes me back.

“So are you a skinhead?”

I smile and tell him I used to be. Kind of a stretch now at this point, but I have a Fred Perry shirt on.

“What kind?”

There’s that nervous knot in my stomach that totally takes me back. Yep. Right back again. The sniffing out begins.

“I was a S.H.A.R.P.,” charm turned away up, smile, and he stops me dead as soon as I got the letter ‘P’ formed. Like car-wreck dead. I can still hear the screeching tires in my head. Over. And over. And over. Followed by the sound of the crumple zone and steam shooting out of the engine.

“I’m white power,” complete with Sieg Heil salute and then very aggressively defensive, “so why are handing me this card with your number on it?”

My face contorted, my eyebrows cocked, and a look of disgust. His back against the wall of the dumpster container and both of us sizing each other up – not for sex, but whether or not this is going to start to go badly. Ice in the pit of my stomach. Him looking the card over and then shooting daggers at me.

“You know what, just give me that card back.” Cooly taking it back, shaking my head and back into my car. What a waste of my time fraught with misdirection and ultimately some of the most uncomfortable bunch of bullshit I’ve been part of in some time.