The Cobbler Part II: Lord Preserve Me and My Faint Heart

After leaving the store with a successful flirtation feather in my cap, I called Sprinkle on the way home. My recap was long and glowing, but she was only interested in one thing. A name. She tried to goad my memory. I was pretty certain his first name began with a B and the last name began with an M. Brendan Monocle. Brent McGrady. Bo Metcalf. I had no idea, and so Sprinkle’s considerable Internet PI skills went unused unfortunately.

I polled everyone I knew about how long to wait before going back and whether or not to just give the Cobbler my number or ask for his. The general consensus was that it was much easier to just include my number in with some sweets. One dissenting voice cautioned that if a guy was actually interested, he would ask for my number and to just give the sweets alone and see what he did. But it was one among a chorus saying, “Go for it, Buttercup! You got this girl.”

So a week later, at the end of one of my shifts, I baked a gorgeous orange-blueberry scone, wrapped it up nice and masculine, and wrote a card with some help: "Enjoy the scone! Next time, give me a call and we'll share one over coffee. -Buttercup Harding, my-dig-its"

With my heart in my throat and my bestie, Sprinkle, on standby in case I threw up out of nerves all over my crush when he let me down gently, I was ready to deliver my scone, complete with my number. On advice from my brother, I left my insoles for returning in the car. (The Cobbler was right: the Keens had broken in nicely. Not leather stocking nicely, but enough not to be hobbled with pain.) Brother suggested that returning the merchandise might send mixed messages, and if I was going to go through with this, I might as well commit. 

I do a walk by, and he's not there. I do another lap. Totally not there.

Well, I'll be damned if I'm going to drive all the way to the mall for no reason. I go out to the car and switch my scone for the insoles, go back in, and make the return. I call Sprinkle on my way back out to the car, filling her in on the disappointment. I would just have to come back the next morning to give it to him I tell her as I slide into my car and CRUNCH. 

I had sat on the scone. I sat on my baked heart.

The box and card were totally crumpled, but the scone was fine. At the first sound of destruction, I had jumped back out of the car like my bottom was on fire, so I guess that saved the baked good. I determined to buy a new box and just take it to him again in the morning. I was pretty sure he worked Mondays. [Not at all stalkerish to know a stranger’s schedule because you visit him at work so often—unsolicited.]

Monday morning dawned bright and brisk. I had forgotten to buy a new box for the scone. And what if it was stale? I hadn’t even bothered storing it correctly when I got home. This really worried me. I couldn’t give him a stale symbol of my affection.

After staring at the scone, willing it to give me some sign of freshness, I finally pinched off a corner to taste. The problem with this is twofold: 1) a tiny taste cannot convey freshness or staleness, and 2) IT WAS TOTALLY OBVIOUSLY MISSING A CORNER. So, I had to eat it all. It wasn’t stale. It was delicious.

Luckily my 3:00 am to 11:00 am bakery job meant that even on my day off I woke well before the mall opened. And, in the end, I think the scone debacle was a godsend because if I hadn’t had to bake something else that morning, I would have probably had some sort of mental episode from having to wait without any distractions.

I decided to make bite-sized chocolate chip cookies that are delicious—no lie. And, because they’re so tiny, the recipe makes about a million. So I dumped 5 dozen tiny cookies into a brown paper bag (like a lunch bag) and tied it with twine (so manly), and after a lot of mental back and forth, decided not to include my number.

The drive to the mall was torture. I was sweating profusely. My face was flushed, and as I walked through Dillard’s, several of the sales associates gave me worried looks. I probably looked like an alcoholic or substance abuser of some kind, which, as I emerged from Dillard’s into the open walkway of the mall, I realized they must be pretty used to on a Monday because it was filled with meth heads. You know their meth heads because of all the teeth they don’t have. There is also something in the air of how they carry themselves and wear their acid washed jeans.

Of course, it’s also possible that the sales associates now recognized me from my frequent visits and were concerned that I was going to have my heart broken by that rakish shoes salesman. Or there was a mall rumor about me being a stalker.

I made a beeline for the shoe store. He’s there. The Cobbler. He was helping a customer, but when I walked in he smiled and waved before attending to his customer’s requests. There was another sales associate there who looked exactly like the young long-haired drummer from the band Glen Hansard hires in Once. I expected when he opened his mouth that he would have an Irish brogue.

“Is there something you’re looking for?”

I had been lurking around the sales section, waiting for the Cobbler to wrap it up with the most indecisive male shopper ever. The Cobbler would occasionally look over with a smile or a wink (a wink! There are some people who think the wink is cheesy or weird. I personally love winks all the way from my delightedly flushed cheeks to my curled toes). This kept me hanging on despite all my nerves shouting, “Get out of here before you make a fool of yourself!” But no way, baby. I was committing to this foolhardiness.

“Nope,” I told the disappointingly American boy. “Just looking at the sales rack. Those Brooks?”

We talked shoe small talk until it became apparent that if I didn’t want to make a total ass out of myself, I would have to try some on. Not Irish Boy went to the back to check for my size, and the Cobbler came over to chat while his customer was walking around the store in yet another pair of shoes.

“Well. I’ve got bad news.”

“You do? What’s that? The number of meth addicts who shop at this mall?”

He blinked at me. “What?”

“Have you seen the people walking around?”

He looked out the store’s open doors just as Billy Jean and Billy Bob rounded the corner for the tenth time (I swear—I was keeping count while I was waiting).

“Yeah, I guess there are some pretty weird people here this time of day during the week.”

“Not a whole lot of teeth happening.”

He laughed. Hard. I beamed.

His customer asked for a different size or something, and the Not Irish Boy came back to tell me he didn’t have my size in the Brooks. So I thought screw it. I’ll come back later. I needed a curtain rod for the blackout curtains I had bought since I had to go to bed at 6 p.m. every night. Living. The. Dream. I’d just run down to some department stores, check out what they had going on, and come back in 30 minutes or something. Surely that would be enough time for the gentleman to make up his mind. There was no way in hell I was giving my bag full of cookies to the Cobbler in front of a customer. Dear Lord in heaven preserve me and my faint heart.

“You’re not leaving are you?”

I turned around at the door. “I’ll be back to chat. I have something else I need to do while I’m here.”

As I sashayed my way down to Penny’s, weaving in between tweakers, I glowed with womanly self-assurance. I mean, you can’t hear the wounded pleading in his voice—but it was there. That man was in love with me. This was going to be cake. I texted Sprinkle an updated while I dinked around. Bought a curtain rod. Tried on clothes I had no intention of buying. Browsed Claire’s because kids these days. Browsed Hot Topic because goths these days. Went back by the shoe store—and the customer was still there! It had to have been at least 30 minutes since I had left. I had waited 30 minutes in the store. And he had been there when I got there. Who knows how long he had been “shopping.” And this is not a big shoe store. Was he trying on every size in every shoe? What on earth?

I kept right on walking back to Dillard’s. Bought a blanket because when do you ever not need a soft blanket? And took all my purchases to my car. Having a mall crush is expensive, people. If for no other reason, don’t do it to preserve your folding money.

So at this point it had to have been at least almost an hour since I left the store. I walk by, and yes, the customer is gone. The Cobbler is sitting on the floor doing inventory. Not Irish Boy looks up and says, “Hey, Travis [aside: I actually don’t remember his name, but I know it absolutely did not start with a B], look who’s here.”

This causes my heart to lurch painfully. What did that mean? “Look who’s here?” Was that knowing tone because the Cobbler had thought I’d left and told this neo-hippy that he was bummed we hadn’t gotten to talk, that he loved me and wanted nothing more than to confess his love? Or did it mean, “Hey, look. Your stalker’s back”? What did the Dillard's sales associates know? What had their looks meant?!

[Next Tuesday will be the third and final installment of The Cobbler series where I might actually get somewhere with this guy...]

The True Confessions of Buttercup Harding

Yesterday, Turner Classic Movies had an “adventure on the high seas” movie marathon—aka, pirate movies. Thank goodness the boring business of working with spreadsheets can be done while watching television! These adventures gave me a thirst to read a nautical tale. One packed with suspense and adventure. One that I could immerse myself in, become part of the story.

Enter The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. This Newberry winner, written by Avi, was required reading when I was in the fifth or sixth grade. I can’t remember which. But I can remember my overwhelming desire to hie off and join a ship’s crew. My parents should be thanking God that Oklahoma is landlocked.

Around the same time I first read that book, my family took a month-long road trip to hit all of the national parks west of the Mississippi. At the end of our journey, we visited Alcatraz, the United State’s most high security prison. Since its heyday during the Prohibition era, it has been transformed into a museum that tourists like my family can visit. My mother, being the dedicated lifelong learner that she is, insisted we all listen to the audio tour, not just wander through.

From the moment I placed those headphones over my ear holes, I was enthralled. The narrator had a History Channel-worthy voice. But even if the inflection and tone had been lacking, the ambiance noise in the background would have been enough to submerge me in that world. It changed from the clanking and cries of seagulls on the dock to the whispers of men in their cells to the shouts of violence in the mess hall.

As I walked the halls of Alcatraz, peering into the men’s cells that still had their effects on display, I imagined myself there, cutting hair in the barber shop, shanking any who dared threaten me in the cafeteria, attempting escapes with the inmates. I was thirteen years old. I wanted to be a forty-year-old mob boss. Felony is exciting!

While these youthful aspirations are—well I find them endearing. Others have told me that they’re weird. Apparently girls shouldn’t want to be Al Capone when they grow up with the sole goal of being thrown into prison. While I find them endearing, they’re more farfetched than the average ballerina or fireman dreams. The truth is that I would never be able to climb rigging without a) hanging myself, b) falling to my death, or c) vomiting myself to death from motion sickness. And as for being a felon…I’m a good girl! I just don’t have what it takes to be convicted. But oh, once I was there, in prison, I could be an awesome inmate. The best inmate. Which would basically mean I would get out on good behavior before I ever had the chance to attempt an escape.

But still the thirst for adventure chases me. Usually I’m fully content to live in Oklahoma. I love, love, love, love Oklahoma. I have seen the world. I have been to big cities and small all over our country and ten others. I have been on four of the seven continents. So anyone who considers themselves learn-ed and wants to correct my backward love of my state, they can stuff it. I don’t scorn your love of NYC or London or Tokyo (or wherever it is that you want to make your real home). So don’t scorn mine.

There are problems with Oklahoma, though. I will grant you that. For instance, adventure. What am I to do for adventure? Noodling just doesn’t do it for me. Nor does cow tipping, paintballing, or camping in the Ouachitas or the Ozarks. When I want adventure, a change in routine isn’t enough. It’s more than a need for adrenaline, too. I want danger. Not senseless danger, like sky diving. I want logical danger like mobsters or being on the wrong side of the law or sailing on the open sea.

So I have to ask myself, since my daydreams are so totally improbable, what is at the root of this thirst for big adventure? After staying up till four a.m. reading The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, I have a theory. What I yearn for isn’t just adventure. It’s that big life-changing event: mutiny on my ship, falling into crime, battling gross injustices, surviving a near-fatality. It’s experiencing something bigger than life, bigger than myself, and being changed because of it. That’s why simple adventures: travel, starting a business, going to a peach festival, noodling, etc., don’t satisfy that thirst.

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle ends with thirteen-year-old Charlotte unable or unwilling to be reabsorbed into her well-bred family after her two-month adventure on the sea. She’s changed too much. The last sentence of the book reads,

Something Zachariah told me filled my mind and excited my heart: “A sailor,” he said, “chooses the wind that takes the ship from safe port…but winds have a mind of their own.”

According to my theory, I want to choose that wind, and then fly before it, whether I head toward storm or fair skies. As long as I’m pointed toward the open horizon, it doesn’t matter to me. The adventure is in the not knowing. It’s in the bigness, grandness, and uncertainty of the journey, and especially the unknown destination.

If you know me very well or have been reading this blog, you’ll understand how paradoxical that is. I sometimes throw little temper tantrums (luckily my dogs are usually the only witnesses) when writing a business plan becomes overwhelming. Or when I don’t know who to call to get a particular answer. Or when I begin feeling the pinch of my shrinking savings account. Or something as tiny as the brand of dog food I buy being moved somewhere else in the store. Clearly, I don’t like the unknown. In fact, not knowing is my least favorite thing. It makes me feel vulnerable and stupid. I deplore feeling stupid. It gives me heart palpitations when I feel out of my element. The kind of adventure I want to chase is entirely about being out of my element!

So what? Am I crazy? My opinion might lack objectivity, but no, I don’t think I’m crazy. Or at least not for this. There are several basic human aspirations at play here. 1) The desire to do something bigger than yourself. Leave a mark on others, or, if you’re the right person at the right time and place, leave a mark on history. 2) The need to escape the responsibilities of your current life. I think psychologists would back me up on this. At one time or another, every person has dreamed, what if? 3) The even more basic, deep-seeded craving to give up control.

There’s this simultaneous need in human beings to be in control and the wish to give up all control. It’s tiring, isn’t it, trying to control every aspect of your life? We’re all a bit OCD on the inside. We believe if we can just choose our friends and choose our profession and choose our partner that we will have a good life. If we could see into the future, we would pick the right path when we came to a fork in the road.

But that’s a lot of responsibility! And it also is disproved day after day. Your partner cheats on you, a parent dies, you get fired, or you end up hating what you chose to do for a living. When things like this go awry, our need for control is aggravated. We go on overdrive, attempting to control everything and every one. All we want, deep down, is to give up control. It’s too much to do to control every little thing. And we keep messing stuff up. It gets worse, and we just want Mom or Dad to come pick us up and clean up our mess. Our grip on our lives is so tight, though, that it is painful, so, so, so painful, to pry our fingers loose. That pain reinforces the belief that we not only want to be in control but we need to be in control in order to avoid pain and failure.

And then I have a day like yesterday, when all I want to do is stand up and walk out, driven by a wind of my choosing with an unknown path and destination. I want to experience big things I have no control over. I feel I can be the right person at the right time and place—if I just let go. If I stop trying to control my life, narrowing it down and boxing it in to something manageable (because really, how much can any one person control? I can’t even control myself!), then my life could be epic! And that’s what I want for myself. Epicness.

Do you ever feel this way? What is your what if daydream?