I
went to open up my passenger-side back door, but arms were completely full of
grocery bags so this simple task wasn’t as easy as I had hopped. I managed to open the door but as I was
loading my bulky bags in the car I pushed the door to far and I heard the heard
stopping sound of car door on car door.
I quickly shoved my bags in cursing under my breath. First I looked around, no one was there
to witness my crime. I then I began assessing the damage. To my enormous relief it didn’t leave
that bad of a mark. Or did it? Was
mine the little nick bellow the window, or the huge scratch right next to
it? As I began to examine the car
and realized it would be hard to discern my nick from the rest of the scratches
on the beat up minivan. The blue
paint was faded and dirty and like I said scratched in various places. It had to have been old to begin with
early 2000’s I was guessing. I
began looking around the beat up bumper when I noticed a sticker, “Penis to
small? Try hunting!” Nice. I thought sarcastically. What looser had that kind of bumper sticker I wondered? I looked around again; there was only a
couple loading up their car half way down the isle from me and an elderly
couple with a shopping car walking past.
I curiously peeked in their window. My jaw dropped at the site. I saw two car seats and a buster seat, juice boxes
everywhere and toys peeking out from under seats. Okay so clearly lots of
kids. What the hell was that kind
of bumper sticker doing on a car that clearly drove around a lot of kids?
Around the mirror were hand made plastic bead necklaces. A flower sticker was stuck above the
radio and a man’s baseball cap over the center council. I imagined a young couple maybe, a
handsome young man and a sweet looking woman with their motley crew of young
children. Then under the passenger seat I saw something weird. The looked like self help books…about
sexuality. A pamphlet near one of
the books was adoption for same sex couples. Before I could begin to form an image I heard a shopping
cart and voices approaching. I jumped and began to go around to my driver side
door when I saw them all. Two
women, one was pushing the shopping cart, her hair short and she wore a t-shirt
and blue jeans. In her cart,
besides groceries, was a little girl with her wispy four-year-old hair in
pigtails, the woman was making faces, kissing the girls cheeks making her
laugh. The other woman wore a
simple dress with her long hair held in a clip out of her face. She was watching the first woman with a
loving smile and pushing a double stroller, which held what looked like infant
boys. They were clearly
partners. I felt stupid for
immediately jumping to a man and woman, these two women looked so happy, so
loving, it was amazing to me how people still refused to consider them a
family. But I was a bit dumbfounded I looked at the bumper sticker and back at
this family extremely confused.
The longhaired woman noticed my glance and smiled ruefully, “It’s a joke.” she said to me and then
gave her partner a smirk that said it wasn’t her idea. Her partner replied, “Hey I think it’s
funny.” They both laughed and the
one began putting groceries in the trunk while the other strapped in the two
boys. I got into my car smiling to myself. Not really sure why, but not really caring.
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