Salvia, Pyrethrins, Crush

I have a crush. It’s been blooming for 3 days now. I don’t know the person. I’ve seen her twice. Spoke briefly each time.

The first time went something like this:
Me: “Do carry the Mexican Salvia?”
Her: “ We’ll have that in tomorrow.”

She was wearing a cute hat, the variety I would associate with rice farmers in Vietnam. Her voice was kind and clear, and her eyes beamed along with her dimpled smile. Descartes called the eyes the window to the soul. For me, they’re an imperative. I can’t speak to people wearing dark glasses. I feel like I’m missing on so much expression, like they’re hiding something. The subtle movement of the brow, the flicker of the lids, the level of the gleam. So much is offered there. For me, it was all it took.

This turned out to be her standard MO, as per today’s conversation:
Me: “Do you have any insecticidal soap with pyrethrins?”
Her: “ The one in the bright green bottle on the top shelf there has pyrethrins.”

Ah, we’re destined for a deep love no doubt. Isn’t it the mundane where the real connection happens? This is no seduction. This is Life 101, and here I am living it, buying potted starts and earth-safe insecticide. If it’s not obvious, this hapless stranger in the wily machinations of my deluded drama works in the garden department at a hardware store.

Now it’s true that I was interested in both the Salvia and the soap. But I admit that I might not have made the extra walk today if I didn’t think I might have a second chance at whatever. Clearly I was not on the offensive. It was more like reconnaissance. Or maybe browsing. And I guess that’s really where I stumble. People with service jobs are just doing their job. I can’t get myself to show up to someone’s workplace and steer their attention toward my life, and my interests.

Instead I ask real questions that have no chance of leading them to think of what I have in my mind: that something about the way they are makes me want to ask for more, whatever that means, however it may be. Is that deceptive? Only to myself perhaps.

Okay so I did compliment her hat. Well actually I said I liked it. Which is not necessarily a compliment unless there’s an assumption that I have good taste. She thanked me, so perhaps she thinks I do. After all, she’s the one wearing it, so my taste must be at least as good as hers, unless it’s a work requirement, but I didn’t see anyone else wearing one. What kind of hardware store makes people wear Vietnamese rice farmer hats anyway? Breathe.

She’s probably married, engaged, in love with a decent person who keeps her photo in a small gilded picture frame at his workplace. I wonder if he's a rice farmer. Maybe she’s into women. Maybe she’s into solitude. But the eyes, the glow. I’m not lonely. I’m intrigued.

Well, I’ll need a pot for my Salvia at some point. And probably run out of the soap with pyrethrins. I wonder if I'm out of 5/8" wood screws. And there’s always the possibility of exchanging the dimmer I bought on the first visit for one that matches my other faceplates. Perhaps I should have joined their frequent shopper program as the cashier suggested today when I was leaving.

This is going to be a costly affair.