home is where the absurd is

I spent the first 3 days of my ostensibly triumphant return holed up at home, trying to shelter myself from the reverse culture shock of seeing my hometown again. Luckily, it was pretty easy to do with cookies to be baked, family friends to entertain and jetlag to get over. But today I decided to venture into the wild, rough streets of Orlando on my own. I had prepared myself for this moment - I had been hearing "because

of the crisis" as a reason for everything for months anyway, so I figured that would also apply here. Basically, I was expecting to see tons of homeless people, foreclosure signs, and shut up storefronts everywhere. My fears were (mostly) unfounded, except for the notable demolition of the local ice cream joint, Coney's (which was formerly known as Dairy King - the estranged husband of the queen, I presume). But the other greats like Austin, the tea house on Edgewater Drive, and Orange Cycle are still around. And the traffic on 436 sucks as hard as ever.

I have to say, one of my favorite parts about being back is eavesdropping. My Mom and I went shopping in the old money part of town today (Park Ave., in Winter Park) and I heard some very interesting things. Ah, America, for better or for worse, there's nothin' like ya. Here are my favorites:

Overheard in Chico's, a middle aged women's fashion emporium

Overenthusiastic salesgirl, holding up blouse: "So, do you like this one?"

First snooty middle aged French lady: "I HATE it."

Salesgirl smiles awkwardly, shuffles away

Second snooty middle aged French lady [in French]: "I cannot find anything in this store..."

Overheard in a cosmetics store

One salesgirl to another, angrily: "I DON'T like avocados. They smell horrible, they taste horrible, it just makes me want to vomit!"

Overheard in a fair trade store

Flamboyantly gay salesguy to customer: "These purses are made out of used burkas. The women just sew them up when they finish with them, it's fabulous! But we're all out of black. As you would expect it's the most popular color..."

Overheard in a hippie dippy incense-stinking boutique

Southern accented lady with a bouffant who doesn't seem like she could possibly own a hippie store, but does:"Can y'all believe how cold it is out there? I hear we're going to have some cold air blownin' down all the way from Atlanta tonight..."

Meanwhile, I'm wearing shorts and flip flops. I guess I forgot to mention, Christmas in Florida looks something like this:

Could be worse, right?