Holy moly, it really IS Pat

(June 27, 2004)

When Hub and I moved from Reading to Somerville, the nearest and coolest grocery store (cheapest too, though less shiny and much smaller than Star "forget-about-parking-here" Market) there was one employee whose gender, after five years, we could not determine. Could not. This person appeared to be the smartest one in the store, probably the cashier's manager. And didn't, thank god, seem to notice me staring at facial features and body type (hand size? Adam's apple?) like I was going to have to participate in a police station line-up later. Very thin and olive-skinned, short Ralph Macchio haircut, rimless glasses and a middle-range voice. The collar peeking out of the cashier's smock told me nothing. Neither did the name tag, which said...I forget the name but it wasn't one you hear every day.

So that was a few years ago. That person still works there, I know from going back every now and again when I'm in the area, such as last May 15 when I threw the polka party at the Abbey.

Now I spend most of my time at Joe's in Allston, and the nearest grocery store is Shaw's, where there is, believe it or not, another mystery-gendered clerk. This one is older, very white, kind of dumpy with reddish hair. Also a middle-range voice. Kind of looks like a cross between Tom Poston and that guy who plays the food critic on Frasier. I also run into this person on the train.

I can't explain it either.