Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Defining moment

I never really grokked "eurotrash" until today. Sure, I had a vague, use-it-in-a-sentence kind of idea. I'd heard it used in context enough times to know I could use it semi-properly, especially if I happened to be drunk, talking to drunks.
Then I saw her. The shoes, first. High-couture, gold brocade with thousands of beads. Pointy-toed like some Italian hallucination of the Arabian Nights. Some sort of trendy skirt and a thick, heavy silk-satin halter top, more beads all over it, the color of weird foreign change just before you over-tip. Her hair was unbelievable--brushed completely forward over her shoulders and curled into perfect ringlets the size of bratwurst. Bigger. Her makeup looked like she'd recently been "done" somewhere that the lipstick cost more than I make a week. I don't even make enough to start talking about her handbag.
And here she was, stalking through the grocery store, screaming at the top of her lungs. A chagrined and possibly frightened young man wearing jeans and a t-shirt followed her, pushing a grocery cart with his head down and his mouth shut. She was screaming at him. In Russian. About limes. It was the only English word that I heard come out of her mouth, and it issued forth in a climbing, growling shriek like the cry of a cornered panther. Then would start again the incomprehensible muttering, the aggrieved whining, the yelling, the screaming, then, "LlllliiiiiiIIIIMMMES!!!!" They were heading towards the produce department, but she would occasionally leave him at the end of an aisle as she stalked down it, still orating, to grab some item and hurl it in the cart. He flinched every time. Once, when she was out of sight (but not sound) I caught his eye and considered offering to call for help, but she scared me too much.
Why is my life so boring? I hardly ever scream at anyone, much less about limes. And never in Russian.