O'Tasty

O'Tasty
Originally uploaded by Rachel Ariel.

Last night I needed to buy quart grocery bags and wet cat food. Because today I am in Florida. It was not warm enough to go outside and sit on the beach, so instead I slept, because I only got four hours of sleep last night, because I decided it was reasonable to take an 8 am flight.

Anyway, getting back to the grocery store.

My sister was in town and at the grocery store with me. And there we were, standing in line, waiting to buy the ziploc bags and the cat food. There was a man in front of us in line buying two bags of frozen fish and some other stuff. I don't recall exactly how we ended up in conversation, but we did, and he spoke with a thick Jamaican accent. And that's when it got amusing. He told us about how he likes to go to the Jamaican bar on Georgia Avenue. How he goes to the bar on Friday nights and drinks two beers and feels "much better". About how he's glad that alcohol is legal, and how he thinks you should be able to drink and smoke the weed if that's what you want to do to feel better.

But don't smoke the crack.

Then he started singing the refrain from "One Love" and talking about drinking and smoking, but not the crack. Then it was time for him to check out. And he went through the whole thing about being Jamaican and "One Love" with the cashier, sans the comments about crack. And she found it just as amusing. And my sister and I could not contain our laughter. We clutched one anothers' hands and resisted the urge to collapse into fits of giggles.

Then he asked for my phone number.

Because he wanted to take me with him to Jamaica in October.

I told him I didn't have a phone (thank you to all of my friends who did not call me during that five minute period of my life). He said "How will I find you?"
I said "Oh, I come to the grocery store quite frequently"

He found that acceptable and went about his business.