Do you ever have one of those moments in which you are attempting with all of your might to convey something to another human being but are entirely aware (as you are speaking) that this person has absolutely no idea what you are saying, and you may as well be speaking Hungarian?
Yes, well, yesterday this happened to me. The irony was, I was in a grocery store talking to a produce guy about a type of vegetable. We’ll call him George.
Me: “Excuse me sir, sorry to bother, but do you have any microgreens?”
George (the produce man) turns to look at me from his produce ladder and is squinting very hard, like my face is made of the sun and burning his eyes to look at.
“Michael-greens? No, I don’t have any of those”
I try not to laugh at this and pull down the mask covering my face so that he can hear me more clearly.
“Oh no, MICROGREENS.”
At this point George is squinting at me even harder and looking like I just asked him where they keep the asbestos and nuclear weapons.
“Yeah we don’t have those”
He says this very carefully whilst looking at me out of the corner of my eye as if incredibly suspicious about what I plan to do with said greens.
I thank him and start to walk away, but George yells again after me
“what the hell are those?”
“oh, um, they’re sort of like baby plants, they are edible”
Very very blank stare. I try again.
“Um, you know, like baby spinach kinda, but-”
“Oh spinach is over there”
He points abruptly towards the spinach, almost falling off his ladder. I sigh.
“Well, it’s actually not spinach exactly, but no worries, it’s fine. Thanks!”
I start to walk away and hope the delirious conversation has ended when I hear him call out to a fellow employee
“Hey, Charlie, do you know what Michael Greens are?”
Oh George.
Sidewalk Chalk 