Are You Talking to ME????

On the way to meet Baroy to pick out a new carpet for our bedroom this morning--long story why we were in two cars, but we were--I got a little lost. So I parked a couple of blocks away from where I was going. No big deal. Anyway, as I'm walking down the street, a pickup truck drives by, and the Latino man behind the wheel rolls down his window and whistles at me, then says, "Hey, how are you doing pretty lady?"

I swear, I turned all the way around looking for whoever he might be talking to. Because lord knows he couldn't be talking to me. I'm a mommy. And I'm 40. I'm as good as invisible.

But he was talking to me. In fact, he slowed down and continued to try and engage me in conversation for about half a block. My old New York street smarts kicked in automatically, and I gave him the old simultaneous eye roll, wry smile, and "you-and-I-both-know-you-wouldn't-know-what-to-do-if-I-stopped-to-chat-with-you" shake of my head.

When I was younger, and when I lived in New York (as I did for the first 28 years of my life), I used to get this sort of thing on a fairly regular basis. I've never been or even looked anything like a model, but I was small and cute and fairly big-busted, and still blonde back then. Hispanic men, in particular, have always loved me, for some reason.

Then I moved to LA, all deflated from a bad seven-year relationship, with my hair having turned a mousy brown in my 20s, and I was living amongst the California girls, the LA actresses, and I was a nobody. But I was single, so I got some attention, even if most of it came from people other than those I'd personally have chosen.

Now, ten years later, I have a husband and two kids and definitely brown hair and breasts that have been nursed on for more than three years and I live in the suburbs. And nobody notices me, aside from Baroy. Nobody. I'm actually fine with that. Truth is, I'm more comfortable on the periphery. And I'm very, very comfortable with being a wife and mother. I love it, in fact.

Still, I felt a touch of wistfulness as my would-be-suitor eventually just rolled his window back up and drove away. I shook my head again, smiled a little less wryly and a little more inwardly, and went off and chose a very, very dark, gorgeously rich brown carpet with my husband, who was waiting at the store for me.