Confessions of a Pick Up Artist

I pick people up. I always have. An old boyfriend use to accuse me of flirting all the time. I do, but I don’t discriminate and I don’t think of it as flirting. I am harmless. I chat.

I am one of those people who chat you up as you are waiting in line at the grocery store. And I am getting bolder as I get older.

It’s hereditary. One of my earliest childhood memories is of being in the line at the Red Owl grocery store in Minneapolis waiting for my mom as she chatted with her friend. Later in the car I would ask how she knew the person whom she was talking with and she would say she didn’t. “I just met her in line. I don’t even know her name,” confessed my mom. “What! Talk to a stranger?” I would reply in horror.

Quoting Holly Hobby and the decoupage plaque on our kitchen wall, mom would say, “There is no such thing as a stranger. Just an unmet friend.”

Holly Hobby has been following me around ever since.

When we first moved to London I tried to put my chattiness on hold. Chatting people up is not what you do in the UK. The moral code is to wait until you are introduced. It might be years until you meet your neighbors. The morning and afternoon 'school runs' are ridiculous. It took a good four months of walking by the same person every single day with our kids before she would give me the ‘Acknowledgement of Your Existence’ head bob.

Needless to say when you are at the Post Office nobody is introducing you to the person in front of you who is mailing a large parcel to West Africa. My inner brain chatter goes like this:

Mali. The African woman in front of me is mailing something to Mali. I have been to Mali. I bet nobody else in this whole post office even knows where Mali is! Should I use one of my 17 words of Bambara and say hello to her in her native tongue? She would be so surprised to have a middle aged white woman in the Jewish enclave of Golders Green speak a few words of her mother tongue. It is so cool to have stereotypes blown away. Do it Wendy. Do it. But then my cover is blown. American; the entire Post oOffice will know I am an American by my nice teeth and broad accent. Then they will blame me for George Bush and the war and British soldiers dying. They are still mad over the Revolution and our independence.

The line moves too fast and the opportunity is lost, but I was ready when I was in Sainsbury’s grocery store the next day.

I hate the Sainsbury’s at the o2 centre on Finchley Road. Big. Impersonal. Always moving the inventory around so they can frustrate the customers. Finally, I had finished my shopping. I was 2nd in line at Check Out Counter Number 2. What is that? The check out woman was singing to herself. Quietly singing, but singing never the less. I know that song, it is John Denver’s Back Home Again One of the first albums I ever owned was the John Denver Songbook. I even bought the music book with the money I saved up from babysitting so I could play my guitar with the door closed and pretend I was on stage with John.

She got to the second verse. She is faltering. She is losing it. She needs me! I stick my head around the person in front of me loading things onto the conveyor belt and offer up:

There's all the news to tell him, how'd you spend your time….

Needless to say by the time all my groceries were loaded into the shopping bags, we had made it through Annie’s Song and even a pretty good attempt at Thank God I’m A Country Boy. The other customers were amused and moving their lips to the words. I suggested we take over the PA system and be the live entertainment at Check Out Counter Number 2.

Maybe we could meet after her shift ended and we could pick up some extra cash busking at the Finchley Road Tube station.

She was Irish.

As we head out on the road this coming year one thing that worries me is of being lonely. Yes, there is Evan and the boys, but I need a good chat from time to time. But not to fear, I will just channel my inner Holly Hobby and remember I am only alone as much as I want to be. How does this sound, “So, have you ever seen the inside of an RV?”