Oxymoron

Despite the jabbering of this public blog I'm a very private person. People don't know much about me and I like it like that. I keep to myself and you keep to yours. What a laugh, in this world today what is private, I don't know my neighbors but I blog. The last guy I dated didn't know my last name but can tell you my favorite drink, book, and food just by reading these pages. The mattress salesman knows I sleep alone! Now that was a shocker to me, how revealing grocery carts and mattress shopping can be.
Testing mattresses at Sleepy's has always been a desire of mine. I come from a family that bought mattresses out of dark warehouses where plush, pillow top, and posturepedic were unknown terms. First off, I had no idea mattresses were so damn expensive, second, Oh yeah I will forsake sex just to sleep on an ultra plush platinum status King size mattress that cost $5000. The Sleepy's sales guy was great, he knew mattresses,I'm sure he's heard it all but even he inhaled sharply when I told him I was shopping for a mattress size twin. "A twin?" He asked, looking at me closely, " what size is the child?" "Not for a child," I said, " for me." He looked again, seemed to get it then put his flashy smile back on and directed me to the showroom. Then I got embarrassed, I never thought that mattress shopping would reveal so much about me. It was an intimate shopping process, again the Sales man was great but the new "technology" of sleeping required a lot of questions about how, when, and where I sleep. So the sales guy knows I sleep alone, on my tummy, on a day bed I consider vintage and have owned since I was 16. He knows too much.
As does the cashier at C-town. Quick little shopping trip to buy ingredients for Sunday dinner and the cashier says," you must be having people over, I don't see any frozen dinners." That metal mouthed twerp! I was being judged by a teenager ringing me up. Okay, perhaps that is taking it too far but I don't like the idea of the C-town cashier being aware of my food shopping habits. A friend once told me that he bought liquor from different liquor stores because he felt the sales people at the store he used to frequent were judging him. I laughed at him, saying why do you care buy your damn Grey Goose. Now I get what what he was saying. Those comments feel like judgments, invasions into my private space. Like those damn club members savings cards that you have to use to get the sale prices all the while giving your shopping choices away. Or those stores where they ask for your number before ringing you up, LEAVE ME ALONE. I don't want you to know what type of cereal or panty hose I buy. I don't want cashiers and sales people commenting and making assumptions about my life based on what I do or don't have in my cart.
of course I type all this on my blog, viewable by anyone on the world wide web. Can't you tell, I'm a private publicity whore.