Last night the guys behind the prepared food bar at Whole Foods wanted to talk to me.
It’s hard to avoid the prepared
foods at Whole Foods, especially if you’re a nice Jewish girl who doesn’t cook (but, for the record, I have evolved from cooking none to cooking some) and especially on the nights Toby isn’t with me and I’m spending the evening with the dog and good TV.
So I see these Whole Foods guys fairly regularly. They’re both in their 50s, I’d say, both with beards, both looking like they do something else for a living and just happened to have gotten stuck momentarily behind the food counter. They are pleasant, they smile, they say things like, “you have a good one,” but they look like they can’t wait to get the hell out of there.
Last night one of them says to me, “decisions, decisions” as I surveyed the offerings of roasted brussel sprouts, orzo with chicken, marinated kale and assorted gourmet salads. And then the other one looked me over and said, “you know who you look like?!” Suddenly I pulled my head out of the salads. Why are they paying attention to me? And I rarely am told I look like anyone, a celebrity, although it has happened a few times–and it’s always the same person.
Very excitedly the guy exclaims, “Bonnie Raitt!”
I consider it a compliment because I happen to like Bonnie Raitt. And I sorta see the resemblance. The Whole Foods guy certainly meant it as a compliment. He likes her music, he’s a “jazz man,” he said.
Here’s the thing, though. The the last time a guy told me I looked like Bonnie Raitt was in graduate school, when we made out on the lesser of two creepy couches in my sublet and then he called me at midnight the next night and begged to come over, said he “had to see” me, couldn’t wait. He was cute. And super smart. And then he came over at midnight and we made out again, and things got a little more heated–and then he flew off the creepy couch with his belt unbuckled and blurted, “I have to go, I have to go, sorry,” and ran out of the door. It was the week before semester’s end. I never saw him again. Weeks later I ran into his good friend, who also told me I looked like Bonnie Raitt, and he said, “did ya hear about A.? Did he call you? He wanted to call you.” No, I said, what happened?–because clearly something happened. “Oh, he joined the Jesuits.” Was it me? Or Bonnie Raitt?
