I Am Not a Criminal, Just an Idiot

This morning I stopped at the grocery store, or "Lunch" as E-man fittingly and straight-to-the-point nic-named the place, on the way to drop him off at school.

At the cash register, I bent down to help him put the lunch in his backpack and realized I'd forgotten to close the zipper of my wallet as my library and museum cards came diving out.

I quickly picked them up, ignored the "shame on you" translated through glares and sighs from the lady behind me in check-out and walked out with all the dignity I could finagle.

After dropping him off, I continued on with a list of errands to run, the first being another, bigger trip to the grocery store.

Once again at checkout, I handed the cashier my credit card and, well, that grocery store must have some problems with frequent bounced transactions or something because this was a first, she asked me for my ID. When I didn't have it, she got the manager.

The manager came and looked at my library card, my museum card, asked my address and made me sign my signature in front of him. It was quite an ordeal and I was pretty glad to be out of there.

On my way home, I started thinking about it and realized hey, why didn't I have my ID? It should have been in my wallet. So I run home, call the grocery store, ask to speak to the manager, get put on hold for too long, hang up and run back to the store. Meanwhile I am imagining that someone stole my ID and there is a fake Anna S already running around. I mean seriously, I live in Jackson Heights, hardly anyone here even speaks English, surely someone here needs an ID to prove their not an illegal immigrant (is that politically correct?). I start thinking of that lady giving me dirty looks in the line behind me and I remember her putting her foot down and now I am sure she saw my ID, covered it up real quick and as soon as I left, she picked it up and became Anna S, a legal citizen of this country.

I run, huffing and sweating back into the grocery store and ask if anyone has found an ID, to which they promptly go and get the same manager that quizzed me on the last trip. He looked at me and said, "Aren't you the one that didn't have ID? Are you Anna?" Boy he was looking at me like I had two heads or was a thieving liar now!

I guess he chose the two heads, because he started to talk me down as he slowly and gently walked me towards the door, no sudden moves. He was looking at me with the most pitiful look when I got down on my hands and knees, looked under the cash register where my wallet had taken a spill two trips earlier and what do you know, there was my ID.

He just looked at me with the most perplexed look on his face, grabbed the thing out of my hand, asked me what my address was, studied the picture, handed it back and stood there with his jaw hanging on the floor while I walked out of there.