Language Barrier

I can't believe it has been a week since the last time I wrote. It has been an interesting week. Son of Pie was a huge success, but more about that in the next few days-- honest, I have a whole post planned in my mind, but the execution was just a little too much for me tonight. Blame it on real-people tasks, which happened to include the gym AND Subterranean Safeway AND laundry. It was a big night; usually it's all I can do to shower after the gym. The irony is that this amazing hypothetical post is all about how I'm pretty much still a college student who plays dress-up and goes to an office during the day.

Anyway, as I said, that is a post for another day. And, as per me, I had a bizarre encounter tonight so it's not that I'm struggling for material.

I went straight from the gym to Subterranean Safeway. It was around 9:00 p.m. I was wearing a sweatshirt, gym shorts, and a layer of grossness from the gym-- and I wasn't cold, which is just messed up. I'll admit, after nearly wiping out on ice multiple times last week, I am kind of enjoying the temperate weather, but then I remember that we're halfway through Advent and I freak out a little.

That was a digression, but the following is an important sidebar. I mentioned a sweatshirt. It is one of my many, many articles of Davenport clothing. The back of this particular sweatshirt proclaims-- in a salute to our diminutive mascot-- "gnome is where the heart is." Cute, right? I love it. Bear this slogan in mind.

I ran up the hill to my supermarket of choice, grabbed a cart, and pillaged the produce section. But I'm me, and apparently the job description for being Kate includes "must attract the crazies in the supermarket." A slim, relatively short, older man approached me as I picked apples, and said with a slight accent, "What does the 'g' stand for?"

Whaaaat? Where did this guy come from? Seriously, he kind of sneaked up on me. I looked at him with a look of pure, unadulterated confusion.

"Is it for genome?" he continued, "like human genome? G-nome?"

Oh no. Am I supposed to do the English as a second language explanation of 'gnome'?

"Uh, no... it's for--" I point to the small gnome who is emblazoned, pointy hat and all, on the front of the sweatshirt. He still seemed intrigued. I think to myself, "There is no good way to say this that allows me to finish my shopping before the store closes at 10."

"--little people. It's like little people."

I think he was pretty disappointed that it wasn't a human genome joke.