This morning as I walked into the mall on the way to work, I noticed a fatherly man with two smallish boys, sitting in lined up beach chairs behind what would have been Locker Room’s exterior wall. Odd I thought.
But then I got distracted because as I walked through the door in, I looked up and there was a view composed of: the hard, straight edge of the building and some of the cream-colored wall above me, the bright blue sky above and between the edge and the sky, the black head and shoulders of a very large crow sitting above the door looking down at me, first with one eye and then the other.
Fast forward to this evening.
Tonight when I came out, the father and two boys had been moved away from that wall (probably told it was too close to where large trucks park to unload shipments). They were joined in their new location by maybe 30 people, mostly young men. There were some cat calls as I walked to my car. (I was thinking: yet another trendy sports shoe launch! how exciting! not!)
Seriously? Cat calls?
“And what sort of party is this that I wasn’t invited to”, I called out, turning towards them.
As I turned, I realized one tall young man was striding towards me. Really?
“Hey”, he said as he got way too close to me, “aren’t you going to join us?”
“No”, I said in my most imperious* imperial** tone. “~I~ am going home.”
And I turned, walked over to my car and got into it.
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* imperious: adj assuming power or authority without justification; arrogant and domineering: his imperious demands
** imperial: adj of or relating to an empire: Britain’s imperial era.
• of or relating to an emperor: the imperial family.
• majestic; magnificent: the bedroom is huge and imperial.