Red-Faced Anger

I accidentally bought a lip pencil rather than an eye pencil. I realized after I had already gotten home. Fuck it, I will bring it back later, I told myself. I certainly won't be lining my lips unless I suddenly find myself to be a Hispanic girl in a 90's R&B video.

Today was that fated day. After hitting every red light on Wolf Road, I turn into Colonie Center Mall, a place that has gotten too big for its britches. A Cheesecake Factory AND a PF Chang's? Has the Westchester Mall followed me all the way upstate? Will I soon have to pay 8 dollars to park?

I make an abrupt stop at a cross walk. A red faced woman in khaki capris is leading a gaggle of middle-aged men, all of whom have some sort of visible injury. I'll later realize she must have caused all those injuries with her bad attitude. It's like a middle America duck crossing, aptly taking place at a mall.

Now she is yelling, and she quickly turns toward me. "I KNOW YOU'RE FROM JERSEY BUT..." *warble warble warble* I don't know what the hell this ill-tempered woman says after this. I scrunch my face in disbelief and give her the middle finger because I am too shocked and confused to yell back. I stopped, I did not hit anyone, what is the issue? Most of her anger seemed to stem from my NJ license plate.

Dave calls her a "dumb bitch". This reminds me of a similar experience in which Mike retaliates with a series of rapid fire "OKs" launched at another needlessly irate woman. It doesn't sound abrasive, but oh did he put that woman in her place.

I am beginning to wonder if middle age is the time that females realize they may have gotten the short end of the stick. Judged by looks and apparel our entire lives, then menopause sets in, so does weight gain and irritability? Or maybe these women hate New Jersey with such a fiery passion they need to unleash it on anyone who shows visible evidence of its existence. Either way, I could fill a book with New Jersey jokes told by people who have been there once, when they were 3 years old.

I feel angry, and then I realize this woman hates everything including herself, and that makes me feel better. I return the pencil to a confused painted face at Sephora. It amazes me that these girls take the contents of the store and proceed to dump them onto their skin. Are they trying to sell this makeup or scare the shit out of the customers?

Either way upstate life is a lesson in....something. Fashion travesties? A need for 30 Applebee's locations? I don't know, but I like the fact that my state of origin keeps people away from me while driving. Or maybe that it invokes such anger from someone simply crossing the street that it's laughable.