Verbal Assult

I haven't gone back to the dirty place since the spare jeans incident... Ew. But, I ventured back today. It was fairly early, 6 a.m. even, and I thought I would take the puppies for a bit while my husband worked his swing shift for four hours.

It's the end of July - but it was 40 degrees. Luckily I wore spandex leggings under my shorts, and I had a sweatshirt and blanket which I rolled up into.

"Sorry to wake you up," an old man grumbled as he walked past me. I looked up. "Say what?" I asked. "Sorry to wake you from your bed," he repeated.

Whoa! I jumped up, "Hey, I'm not sleeping! I'm reading a library book; I have a library card; I work AND live down the street; my husband works a swing shift; he's at work right now; I thought it would be fun to bring the dogs to the park; I tried to insert every possible insinuation that I was, in fact, not homeless into this conversation without stating what I was dying to actually scream, loudly: "I'm really not a homeless bum."

But he wasn't the only one. A little later a couple kids came up, "Heeeeeey, wanna come blow up this watermelon with us?" I'm alright just reading, I assured them. "Coooool, but uh do you care if we do? It's going to be awesome!!" Nope, really, I'm ok. When their melon failed to blow up, they hopped the fence plastered with warning signs and jumped around on the old dilapidated bridge cussing and giggling every time loose boards fell beneath their feet into the river below. Then later, while loudly contemplating how awesome it was that they almost died many different times jumping on the bridge, they attempted to climb up the notches in the pillars of the 100ft. overpass.

Unfortunately, at one point I had to give in and face the repugnant restrooms. As I had nowhere to put the dogs, they had to come with me. When we walked out of the bathroom, a city worker was standing nearby in the parking lot. She looked at me, like I looked at the prostitute and cabbie when they walked out in the spare jeans episode.

I felt dirty.