Travel Turtle

Creativity Prompt. Have you been there before? They offer a lot of prompts, on different topics, and I decided to do one today. A prompt from October. It’s about uniqueness in yourself and using the prompt, I thought I would talk about uniqueness in me. I might get off topic. We’ll see.

Here’s a story of me. A perfect “me” story. I’m unapproachable. When I worry that one day, I’ll be waddling around pregnant and some stranger will want to touch my belly, I realize (before I even finish the thought), that that’s probably not going to happen. I give off a vibe. A vibe that says: Don’t touch me. I’m not mean, I smile a lot, but like Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze at the beginning of Dirty Dancing, I have my space and you have yours. I’m quite aware of it. And if you are near me, you’ll be aware of it too.

But, that’s not my story. Over the holidays I went to a very busy Starbucks. Line out the door. The barrista/cashier was one of the nicest guys. I assume. I noticed how he greeted each and every single customer when it was their turn to order. “How’s the shopping going, do you want to try a peppermint mocha, oh what a great selection!” As if I was in a movie, where a narrator who knows what’s about to happen is talking over the scene, I hear a voice in my head: “This super-nice barrista/cashier is not going to be as friendly to you. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

So, I walked up to the man. Smiled placed my order and looked down into my wallet to pay for my tall latte no foam. And then I heard the magical words, “How are you doing today?” what?!?! is it possible… is he really about to be just as nice to me as he has been to the previous 10 people in front of me… I looked up, smiling, ear.to.ear. And then he looked at me. And then my smile broke. And I said to him, “You weren’t talking to me were you?” and he said - “no. I was actually talking to the guy behind you.”

My uniqueness. I am the 1 in 11th person that cafe barrista/cashiers will opt out of talking to. Nine times out of ten.

I’ll be back with another creativity prompt tomorrow. In the meantime, check out my new awesome blog: Travel From Home.