Loyalty

I get creeped out by people who feel intense loyalty to corporations. While corporations are technically “persons” under the law for some purposes, a corporation won’t suggest you put on a sweater when you are feeling cold, or feel sad for you if you are unwell, or tell you that you have spinach in your teeth after a meal. Unless, of course, you pay it to do so.

Loyalty to people, I get. Though sometimes the distinction between the two kinds of loyalty gets confusing. Things get even more confusing when dealing with small businesses.

The result of this confusion is that I currently carry the great guilt that comes with sneaking around behind someone’s back. In short, I’m a coffee slut.

For the past eight months, the object of my affection was Shakira. Shakira works at the nearby mom and pop coffee shop. She is tall and exotic with a mass of black curly waist-length hair. She calls me pumpkin. She noticed my haircut.

She also remembered my order after my very first visit: “Large coffee no milk, Pumpkin?”

Unfortunately, the coffee there just isn’t that great. It is rather weak. I kept going back because I like the idea of supporting local business, and because of my platonic Shakira crush.

But three weeks ago another little coffee shop opened up about a block from my place. I was lured in by the smell of freshly baked scones. The beautiful and perky co-owner welcomed me with a big smile. As she poured me a large she chatted to me about how she and her partner “fell in love” with this coffee and felt they just “had to” open a coffee shop. I was charmed.

The coffee was the best I’ve tried. Bold, but not bitter. Spicy flavour. Deep and heavenly aroma. I was hooked.

My walk to work brings me first to the new coffee shop, moments later I walk by Shakira’s place. I’ve taken to grabbing a coffee at the new place, and then guiltily rushing by Shakira with my head down on the opposite side of the street. Sometimes I take a one-block detour to avoid the large window through which Shakira sometimes looks out.

Unfortunately last night I unexpectedly bumped into her at the grocery store.

Shakira: Oh, hi!
Me: [looking at my shoes] hi..
Shakira: Haven’t seen you in a while…
Me: Um, yeah. I’ve been, well. You know.
Shakira: Yeah. I know.
Me: Okay – well, bye. See you soon…
Shakira: Right. Bye.

She totally knows. I’m so busted.

Today I shrunk myself.

I concentrated very hard, and then a bit harder. I fixated on a grain of sand and willed myself to become smaller. And then, it felt as though my skin was bunching like an accordion, my bones creaked and the thinner ringed portions slid into the thicker ringed portions like those old fashioned pocket telescopes. Pretty soon I found myself in a small and dusty crack in between two slats of the hardwood floor.

I tried to speak and my voice was very high pitched. Like the notes in the upper range of Mariah Carey’s Sweet Lover Come Rescue Me.

And then, into the room she came. But she couldn’t see me. Nor could she hear me.

I took little dust mites by their tails and hurled them at her big leather boots. I sent a spray of spit particles hurling upward so that they coated her hem in a fine salivaish mist. I screamed every four letter word I knew. I jumped up and down. I even mooned her.

And I felt better.

Then I looked at that oafish face. And I thought about all the times she had tried to make me feel small. And I realized that I was the bigger woman.