guarded

I've contended for a long time that my guardian angel is very busy.

Yesterday I went to the local grocery store for some comfort ice cream and another Die Hard movie (I'd driven eight hours only stopping once on Tuesday, which kindled a flare-up in my old back problems, rendering me stoic but quite miserable), and as I was checking out, the cashier, a slender cute teenaged girl I've always gotten along with, struck up a conversation.

"Do you know [Boy #1]?" she said.

"Yes," I answered, keeping my expression and tone neutral. However badly things end with a guy, or a friendship, or a job, I dislike participating in the spread of nastiness, so I tend to keep my mouth shut.

"Yeah, he said he'd been talking to a girl named Sarah who worked in a law office, and I knew your name was Sarah and when you came into the store yesterday, you were wearing your jacket with the law office logo on the back, so I figured he was talking about you."

"Yes indeed," I said.

There was a pause while the credit card machine malfunctioned and she pushed a few buttons. After a minute, she said, "I'm not on very good terms with him."

"Oh really," I said, perking up.

"Yeah. I had to call the cops on him."

"Oo, I want to hear all about this," I said.

She told me that, first of all, she was eighteen and Boy #1 was twenty-eight ("Yesss," I intoned), and that she had a boyfriend, which Boy #1 knew, but she'd been hanging out with Boy #1 thinking everything was cool, until one night while hanging out with him she told him she was going to her boyfriend's house. At which he exploded in temper. She left, got into her car, and drove to her boyfriend's. Boy #1 followed her, shouting the whole way, so when she got there, she called the police. He has since been prank calling her cell phone, and showing up at the store to call her nasty names (really nasty names). She said she had to block his number the day before.

"Well," I said, after expressing sympathy, outrage and horror. "I'm glad I'm not seeing him anymore."

"Yeah," she said. "When I figured out he was talking about you, I thought, 'Oh no, I have to say something to her! She's so cute and nice!'"

I thanked her and left the store thoughtfully. My first response was to acknowledge how much I love the sisterhood of being female. This is what we do -- we look out for each other, we are shocked and horrified and irate at each other's misfortunes, and we go out of our way to warn bare acquaintances about the bad apples in the barrel.

My second response was to wonder if she'd been telling the whole truth. I have no reason to doubt her; we barely know each other, and she's always struck me as nice. Still, despite the sisterhood, girls will sometimes screw each other over as royally as possible when it comes to men. It could be that she'd like to be with Boy #1 and was trying to eliminate any competition. That doesn't bother me a bit in this case; I've been done with him for a few weeks now.

Which she would know if she were really attempting to date him. I concluded that I'd take her story as the truth with a pinch of salt, because it does makes sense that way: If she already has a boyfriend, and Boy #1 is either jealous or attempting to groom her into feeling safe, he would have brought up my name as someone he's seeing currently, in order to accomplish his ends. (If this is something that pathological guys do. I don't know much about workings of the masculine psyche.) I'll assume she left out some details, however, as I'd seen no signs of that kind of behavior in him, though he was something of a jerk to bolt when he thought I was "getting too serious" -- which goes to show what he's really after. Also I'd detected a cruel streak in him, toward the end, although, again, I didn't see any signs of psychotic behavior.

My next thought centered around how not like that he'd been with me, and to wonder why. I'm older and not as vulnerable/powerless? He'd decided to get rid of me, and so all of that crazy behavior wasn't necessary? There was a lot the cashier hadn't told me and her situation with Boy #1 was starkly different from mine? It makes me shiver a little bit, because I was alone with him a lot, and he really could have hurt me if he'd wanted to. But he didn't -- he knew I can handle a gun, I never indicated weakness, and something kept him (mostly) within the bounds of decency. But then it also boils down to Boss-Man, who has a reputation about town, and would descend in a cloud of burning sulphuric legal wrath on anyone who gave me grief, so I walk around with a certain aura of confident protection. Everybody knows whom I work for.

Even so, I've felt a little sorry for my guardian angel over the years. He seems to be working a lot. Do beings of cosmic power ever need a vacation? (I hope not, for my sake.)

Glad to have gotten out of that one, and that unscathed.