Skip to main content

Invisible Girl


I was nine years old, and I wanted to buy a present for my sister's birthday. My mom dropped me off at The Blossom Cottage, a local boutique, and told me she'd be back in ten minutes. We lived in the kind of town where you could drop off your nine-year-old for ten minutes without qualms. Or so she thought.

There were two salesladies in the back of the store when I went in, but no other customers. No one greeted me, although I'm sure there were little bells attached to the door that jingled when I walked through. I went to the stationery section and picked out a package of Suzy's Zoo paper.

I was standing in the center aisle of the store, about to approach the cashier's desk, when the two women started to walk towards the front of the store. They walked by me, and I swear one of them made eye contact with me, and then they turned out the light, completely left the store, pulled the door closed, and one of them locked it. While I stood there gaping at them. It all happened so fast I didn't have time to say, "Hey, wait!" or "Um, I want to buy this Suzy's Zoo stationery for my sister!" or "WTH?"

I stood there in the silent store. I wandered to the back and down all the aisles to make sure that I really, truly was there alone. The store was completely empty. It was creepy and dark. I felt stupid and also very scared.

I went to stand by the front door; I pulled it to make sure it really was locked. My mom pulled up to the curb; she waved at me through the car window. I shrugged. She waved. I gesticulated. She got out of the car. "I'm locked in!" I shouted.

"What do you mean?" she asked. She pulled on the door. "Krista, how did this happen?"

"I don't know!" I said. I felt like crying. Was I going to have to spend the night in The Blossom Cottage? Sleep amongst the pot pourri, the windchimes, the quilted handbags? What about dinner? What if I had to pee? Suddenly I really had to pee.

"Try to go through the back door and come down the alley," Mom instructed.

"But I didn't get to buy this!" I said beseechingly, holding up Jana's present.

"Well you can't buy it if there's nobody there to pay for it!" she said.

I turned around. I sadly put the stationery back where it came from and then I walked cautiously through the store, past the cashier's desk, through a door into a very dark storeroom. I saw a heavy metal door; I said a small prayer, and pushed. Salvation! It opened, and I went into the alley and ran for my life, all the way back to the car.

It remains one of the strangest experience of my life. I swear the saleslady saw me, I swear it. And yet she walked right by me as if I wasn't there, as if my existence didn't even register. Could it be that, for just a moment, I was invisible?

To this day, any time I see a Suzy's Zoo animal, a whimsical duck, a smiling turtle, I shudder a little bit, and remember the day when I simply wasn't there.

Comments

Chris said…
You've never told me this story...weird. It'd make a great short story.
H Noble said…
Creepy! I was terrified to speak to people when I was little, let alone be left by myself in a strange place. This probably would have pushed me over the edge! I remember one time my mom sent me in the post office with a package and some money and promised it would be enough. Valton Howard gave me a hard time and said it was $100. I started crying and ran back to the car before he could tell me he was teasing. I was mortified.
aimee said…
Oh my gosh! You never told me this story either! WTH? is right!

Popular posts from this blog

Whew

When they called Pennsylvania, I knew. When they called Ohio, I knew for sure. But I still got chills up and down my spine when they called it for good. And I have tears in my eyes every time I think of his speech. Last night, I attempted to explain to Mallory why this was such a big deal. (This was after a rather undignified few minutes during which she, Phoebe and I danced around the living room chanting Go-bama, Go-bama!) I tried to explain that not so many years ago, black people couldn't even vote, much less become president. She looked at me in great perplexity. She didn't get it. She didn't get racial prejudice. And now...well, it's not that I believe for a second that she and Phoebe will grow up in a world where prejudice doesn't exist. But they do live in a country where, for one election, it was transcended. This is their world now, and their history being made, and I...I'm just elated.

Crafty Update

I've made a whopping total of two things this summer. A puppy for Phoebe's birthday: And a cell phone case for me: The case needs a bit of tweaking; I'm not happy with the strap. But it was way easier than making a stuffed animal, I'll tell you that much. The girls were on etsy with me last night looking at crochet patterns. Now I have a list of requests a mile long. I'm not sure when I'll have time to get to these new projects, but I'll keep you posted. Because I know you care.

File under: stupid problems to have

I'm going to see Wicked (the musical) in May with my sister- and mother-in-law. I'm excited; I like musicals. In anticipation, I downloaded the soundtrack a few days ago and have been listening to it continually on my ipod ever since. I read Wicked (the book) back when it first came out, but didn't remember much of the plot. So in order to understand what happens in the gaps between the songs in the musical, I turned to wikipedia for a plot summary. Then I clicked over to the synposis of the book to see how it differed from the musical. Reading about the book made me realize that I had pretty much forgotten all of the book. In fact, to be honest, what I remember about the book was that I found it a bit dull. A bit long. A bit too much about the politics of an imaginary country. A bit too full of unsympathetic characters. And then, I remember, I read the author's next book (a retelling of the Cinderella story) and didn't like it much at all. So I never even cons