Today was a big market day- that totally crowded busy farmer’s market in Temple Bar. I have only been twice now, but I have quite an affection for it already.
Even on a very hot day like today, I took pleasure in straightening up the produce and helping the customers- a few of whom remember me from last week! That really pretty girl from Massachusetts took me to lunch too!
But there was a dark cloud glooming this day. Kera. All day long (not literally- I did have that lunch break) she was following me around micromanaging me and making all kinds of suggestions about how to do my job. She often did so in a jokey teasing way. Just kind of making fun of me.
She also takes a lot of things personally and cannot really take suggestion. If you compliment someone within earshot, she pops up and asks some variation of “what about me?”
You probably know the type I am describing.
Anyhow, either of those traits, I can work with, but at this point I still have trouble with people who have both at once. So at the end of this long hot day, I had my first petty bullshit argument in Ireland. Truly, a landmark event.
We were loading up the hundreds of boxes of leftover produce and scraps into the trucks at the end of the day. We had two markets tomorrow. Some of what we didn’t sell today was going to market, and some was being composted.
Henrike was standing in the back of one of the trucks calling out what she needed in that van, what needed to go in the other van, and what should be composted.
Kera brought up a box of celery which Henrike said she didn’t need. Kera argued with her. This non-argument went on for about two volleys when Henrike decided to end it by taking the celery.
When Henrike took the celery into the truck and was safely out of earshot, Kera said, in a sing-song voice, “I win.”
I was horrified that she would be so rude and stupid and so when she started telling someone else what to do, I told her to “be cool.”
“What!?” she asked, and I could tell she was already very angry.
“Be cool.” I repeated. “Um, do you guys say that here?”
Pat, an actual master of being cool, said they do. “It pretty much means to chill out.”
She asked me why I would say such a thing to her and so I repeated that whole exchange that ended with her saying “I win.” She then whipped her head away from me and started picking up boxes while yelling, “God! I was just kidding! A joke! Geez!”
A few minutes later, I was singing to myself and she came up to me and said, “It’s not that pleasant.”
“What?” I asked, sweetly deadpan.
“The singing. It’s not that nice.”
“You wanna give it another try?”
“Fuck off!”
And I hope that is the pettiest story I ever have to tell.
Ten Years Ago Today 