Take This Oreo And Shove It

An Oreo-wielding, Up–With-People-ish, Pollyanna with a used car salesman smile and faux bohemian dress from Urban Outfitters ruined my week.  There I was minding my own business mocking the pseudohippies worshiping at the Imagine Mosaic in Strawberry Fields when Pollyanna approached waving a half-empty tray of Double-Stufs. 

No, it was not half-full.  It was half-empty.  Call me a pessimist if you like, but if you have a tray half-full of Double-Stufs, you have a math problem.  The answer is B: a full tray of Stufs.

Speaking of SAT questions, Strawberry Fields does not have any strawberries and it’s definitely not a field.  What it does have is a mixture of Baby Boomers paying respects to John Lennon and his message of love and harmony together with a mob of stoned, weeping baby boomer offspring in Abercrombie tie-dyes.  Not only was the Abercrombie Generation not even born when Lennon lived and died, but their idea of activism consists of peacefully demonstrating that marijuana is not an antidepressant.  I was tempted — oooh, so tempted — to stir the pot (no pun intended) by calling out, “Snap out of it!  I mean, it’s not like he was Adam Lambert or anything!” Two things stopped me.

One, I was in no mood to fend off patchouli wearing pseudohippies wielding sitars and body odor like NYPD night sticks.  Two, there were Oreos.  Remember how, waaaay up at the top of this post, I mentioned Oreos?  You forgot, didn’t you?  Don’t worry, so did I.  Anyway, I know that you’re not supposed to take anything anyone hands you on the street.  But it was the park, it was sunny, there was music, and rainbows and unicorns, and second hand pot smoke.  And Pollyanna and her group of merry women were singing “All You Need Is Love” and waving to everyone and smiling. It was like a good ol’ fashioned love in without the body fluids. I got caught up in the moment and took the entire tray an Oreo.  And like that, I was doomed.  I had just twisted the top off the Oreo and was scraping my teeth across the creamy Double Stuf goodness when Pollyanna says, “You’ve been tagged!”

Tagged?  What the hell?  Look, bitch, Dingo doesn’t do memes so I’m not buying whatever you’re selling but can I have another Oreo?  Instead of an Oreo, she hands me a card with the following message:

Someone reached out to you with an anonymous act of kindness.  Now it’s your chance to do the same.  Do something nice for someone, leave this card behind, and keep the spirit going!

I would’ve handed the card back if I’d have known the existential crisis it would cause, but I was already up to the part of the Oreo-eating exercise where you suck really hard on your teeth, so I was kinda stuck.  Fuckers.  Who hands out Oreo cookies and then asks people to pay it forward?  Fuckers, that’s who.  Kind twatwaffles who want to screw with my life.  And so I’ve spent the past week running around trying to do kind things for people to get this monkey off my back.  It’s not as easy as you’d think. 

First of all, there are no guidelines. Just how kind do I have to be?  Hold the door open for a group of nuns kind, or rescue a child from adoption by Madonna kind?  I spent all last week in a miasma of kindness.  And it sucked.  Nothing I did seemed worth tagging someone else and saying, “Ha, ha, I did something kind for you, now you’re royally fucked!  Good luck trying to pay off this karmic debt, loser!” I mean, doesn’t tagging someone with the Kindness Card undo the kindness you’ve done?

I thought I was free and clear when I saw a couple rooting around for a quarter to put in the parking meter.  I surprised them by popping a quarter into the meter.  They said, “Thank you!” It was too easy.  I couldn’t give them my card.  Not for a lousy quarter.  I had to do something MORE.  I’ve been scouring the city trying to do something kind enough to warrant giving this burden to someone else.  I thought I was off the hook later that day.  As I turned the corner in the grocery store, I noticed this little old lady trying to reach a can of green beans on the top shelf.  Hopping around on pale little bird legs sticking out of yellow leggings she looked like one of those wind-up chicks you get at Easter.  I kept waiting for her to wind down and fall over.  I got the can for her, threw some birdseed in the aisle behind me, and went on my way.  But I didn’t give her the card.  “Hey, old lady!  You’ve been tagged!  Good luck finding someone shorter than you so you can repay this kindness!  Maybe you should carry a ladder with you everywhere from now on to keep this from happening to you again, huh?” It just seemed wrong. 

I keep thinking that I should just toss the card, but I can’t.  So, I’m a wandering Persephone, doomed by an Oreo to be kind to people.  Except Pollyanna.  If I ever see that bitch again I’m going to punch her in the face. 

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