My husband is Thor
The love of my life and I were walking back to the parking lot where we parked our car. We didn’t have any shopping bags in our hands. We were on our way back from one of our window shopping expeditions. It is immensely joyful to walk from store to store checking out arts and crafts, clothing, books, and dinnerware and not buy a single thing. It is my favorite pastime whether I am on my home turf or traveling. I look forward to layovers at airports to engage in my hobby of walking from store to store checking out clothes, chocolates, candy, and arts and crafts. I confess I can’t walk away from buying books.
Becoming a successful window shopper requires self control to be able to walk away from buying things. Knowing what you would buy and what you don't, ignoring shop owner’s or sales people's impatient stares and possible eyerolls requires self confidence. If you are self assured, you can walk away without buying anything with zero guilt after spending time in the store picking everything in sight. On occasion you run into an insistent salesperson who would not want you to walk out without buying something. In such cases you have to be able to walk away quickly or buy something small. Navigating the situation delicately when you find out the price of an item that is out of your price range or budget needs finesse. This is where it is very important to be able to say you can't afford it. I don’t have any qualms about saying I can’t afford to buy something.
It reminds me of the time I was traveling with my aunt. We were browsing books at a small bookstall on the platform at the train station. My aunt picked up a book and asked for the price. The store owner told her the price. She bought the book. As we were walking away from the store, she looked at me and said she thought the book was expensive, but she didn’t want to say she couldn’t afford it. She admitted she gave in to the pride of wanting to show that she could afford to buy the book. I felt bad for her inability to admit that she couldn’t afford it. I felt honored that she felt comfortable sharing how she felt with me. I found it surprising that she didn’t need to worry about losing face and buy the book since she probably would never see this shopkeeper ever again. This incident taught me that I should not buy something because I am afraid of what others think.
I remember this episode whenever I ask for the price and walk away saying I can’t afford it. You have to be self confident and be comfortable in your skin to be able to walk away admitting you can’t afford to buy something. I have a soft corner for small merchants and street vendors. I don’t bargain at small shops and street vending stalls and would buy something if I like it. I have a beautiful applique work blanket I bought from a street vendor almost 30 years ago still hanging on my wall.
As we were walking across a dirt and gravel parking lot towards our car, we ran into an older woman. She was accompanied by a middle-aged woman and a younger woman in her twenties. The older woman was dressed in a beautiful saree sporting hair colored with Henna like a lot of people of Indian ancestry do, myself included for a period of time. Hair colored with henna has a distinct look with reddish hues mixed in with black streaks. It takes a lot longer to color hair with henna, but it is safer than store bought hair coloring kits. It smells great and brings back memories of applying henna to palms and feet during my childhood.
The process of applying henna to palms and feet took several hours. We had to sit still while henna was applied and then several hours after that for the henna to work its magic until the designs on palms and feet took on beautiful shades of red. I have a sneaking suspicion that parents colluded to apply henna on their kid’s palms and feet so we stayed put instead of running around making noise. Sometimes we slept with henna on our palms and feet. We didn’t have the itch to run around. I don’t recall how we managed to sleep without smearing henna all over ourselves and blankets. After washing out the dried up henna, coconut oil was applied to counter the drying effects of henna. The wait was well worth it for the beautifully colored designs on the palms and feet.
The middle aged woman was of European ancestry. The middle-aged and younger women looked like mother and daughter. I was thinking it was an infrequent occurrence to run into a blended family group of different races in my neck of the woods. We were exchanging pleasantries with the older woman dressed in Indian clothing. During the conversation we found out that the older woman was the mother-in-law on an outing with her daughter-in-law and granddaughter. It is an enjoyable pastime of mine to guess if people in a group are related to each other as I dine at a restaurant or wait for a flight watching the world go by. I was feeling great having guessed the relationships correctly. We said bye to the three women and continued our walk towards our car.
We got to our car and found it buried in wood chips similar to the ones in our backyard play areas to cushion our kid’s falls. Wheels were partially visible and we started digging the car out from under the wood chips with our bare hands as my hubby was talking about how it is a good idea to keep a pair of heavy duty work gloves for just such an occasion. I started reminiscing about the time we dug our car out from under the snow at an airport parking lot. We came back from a trip to find our car covered with snow and there was snow all around it. We started digging it out using a small shovel. We were making slow progress until a snowplow driver noticed us and saved us from spending the rest of the night digging.
Wood chip plows were nowhere to be seen and we didn't have a shovel in our car. We managed to clear the wood chips from all sides of the car. Our hands turned red while picking up wood chips with our bare hands. All this effort wasn’t enough to be able to pull the car out. It was still buried under the wood chips. I was looking at the car in dismay, getting concerned about being able to get the car out. Then my dear darling husband lifted the car from the rear and effortlessly moved it out from under the wood chips. I was standing there staring at him with my mouth wide open. At that moment in my dream, I realized my husband was Thor masquerading as a human.
