We were sitting there, and I was thinking about the time I was asked to buy condoms at the local Target store, when the waitress came by to take our order. I was sitting across from my friends Kate and Alex, who had recently become married and were talking about fond wedding memories, and so I found myself considering the menu and drifting off.
“What can I get for you guys?” the waitress asked, and as if she’d just whispered her question or asked it in sign language, neither Kate nor Alex noticed her.
The girl was maybe twenty-two, perky in a fashion that seemed demanded of her in that particular chain restaurant way. Her ponytail was still bouncing when I looked up and asked if we could have a minute or (judging from the way Kate and Alex were talking) twenty.
Our evening had started about an hour before, when Kate called and inquired about my plans for the evening. Being something of a recluse, my social calendar was wide open, and so, feeling more than a little lonely, I told her that I was free. Originally, I was under the impression that it would be just the two of us, and when I learned that her legally-declared better half would be coming along, I knew with a sinking feeling that the night was a goner.
It is a rare occasion, finding a couple with whom I can spend time and not feel like a human-sized equivalent of an appendix. My friends Jason and Leah, for example, have never made me feel like a tag-along. Most couples, especially new ones, seem unable to keep themselves from cuddling and loving on one another, even in public, and, being stricken with some disease that renders me perpetually single, I’m always left wondering why I’m being punished just because they’re sleeping with each other.
For the most part, Kate and Alex’s conversation was fairly exclusive, but every so often Kate would turn to me and clarify some details so that I wouldn’t be entirely out of the loop. Although, I usually enjoyed their company, tonight they were the main attraction, and I felt like an audience member contemplating if I knew enough about Japanese ritual suicide to do it right with nothing but a butter knife. So, I studied the entrees until I found something that sounded good, and when I got tired of holding up the menu and pretending to listen to which songs were played and who danced with whom, I started thinking about random things of my own.
Our table was next to a window, and the Thursday night was quickly growing dark. Across the highway outside was a Target store, and for some reason I recalled the time my friend Amy and I were there shopping. We were killing time one evening, and after walking around looking at CDs and clothes, Amy remembered that she needed to pick up some things for her mother.
We made our way around the store a couple times, and after we’d collected everything in a little red basket, Amy said that she needed to grab something for herself as well. Walking towards the back of the store, I tried guessing what she might be looking for. At first I thought shampoo or conditioner, but we passed those, and before I could try toothpaste we were beyond that as well.
“What are you getting?” I asked, glancing back at the soap that was steadily growing more and more distant.
“Condoms,” she said. “I just ran out.”
At first I thought I’d somehow misheard her, but by then we were stepping into a veritable no-man’s land that flanked me on both sides with tampons and little padded underwear liners.
“And you need these tonight?” I asked.
“Oh,” she said, sensing my discomfort, “it’ll just take a second.”
We moved further down what had to be the longest aisle in the entire store, and I found myself wondering why there had to be so many different kinds of what seemed to me like the exact same product.
Ordinarily, I would’ve prided myself on a sturdy ability to stomach things that make other people uncomfortable. Like, for example, my sophomore year of high school, when my human biology class took a trip to a medical school for a few hours to study cadavers. While several of my classmates had to excuse themselves from the room, I walked around scrutinizing each dissected body with a striking dispassion that I imagined would make me either an outstanding doctor or serial killer.
This, however, was decidedly more disconcerting.
When we made it to the end of the aisle, we stopped. In the last couple sections were the contraceptives, and while Amy searched through her many options, I looked around the corners, hoping that no one would see me. It was one thing, I thought, to go through the women’s clothes helping a friend look for an outfit; it was something else entirely to be where I was currently standing.
Each aisle was marked with a little green sign at each end that gave both a numerical designation as well as a few brief keywords or phrases about what to find inside. Ours was marked G5, and beneath that were listed the phrases “Feminine Hygiene” and, more interestingly, “Family Planning.”
The phrase struck me in a way that lightened the whole idea. It made me imagine a bright, sunny couple marching into a well-lit office building. The man and woman, dressed respectively in a gray suit and a red-and-white checkered dress, would smile and sit before a polished mahogany desk, where a tanned woman with curled hair would greet them and, as if readying herself to prepare a tax return, announce, “So. Let’s plan a family!”
In actuality, the situation wasn’t quite as decorous.
“Do I want Ultra-Ribbed or Smooth Sensations?” Amy said out loud.
I wasn’t going to answer, but then I realized she was actually asking for my opinion.
“Um … what were my options again?”
“I just don’t know which one will be better.” She paused a second, and as I was searching for a response, she reached forward to grab another box.
The spring-loaded pusher behind the box snapped forward after she pulled the black and pink box out, and I cringed as it made a sharp smacking noise against the end of its plastic track. I looked around, thinking that surely somebody — maybe, say, someone from security — would come to check up on us. Lurking near the contraceptives, we were two eighteen-year-olds, one of whom was grabbing box after box with her friend standing behind her, shifting from foot to foot and starting, now, to sweat.
“Now, this one’s a multi-pack,” Amy announced to me, considering it. I watched in horror as she turned it over in her hands and started to read the descriptions posted on the back.
“Are you almost finished?”
Much to my relief, she settled on this one, and after she put the rest of the condoms back in their slots, we made our way back down the aisle.
I looked again at the extensive selection of products related to that specific region of the female anatomy, and as we passed by packages boasting both “Unscented” and “Gentle Glide,” I couldn’t help but thank God I’d never had a girlfriend to ask me to run to the store and pick up something from this section of a store.
As the checkouts came closer, I thought I was in the clear, but then suddenly Amy stopped. Turning to me, she looked me in the eyes, a pleading look, both pitiful and utterly despondent.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“There’s a problem.”
“Don’t tell me you got the wrong size or something.” I looked down at the condoms riding at the top of her red basket.
“No, no. My mom gave me her debit card to get these things. I can’t put those on there or she’ll see them on the receipt.”
“Can’t you just pay for them separately? Or just don’t give her the receipt; tell her you lost it or something.”
“I can’t. Would you pay for them for me? Please? I’ve give you the money when we get back to my house.”
We stood there, me looking into her pleading eyes, for what felt like an hour. My own sense of mortification rose like a tidal wave, but finally I gave in.
“All right,” I said.
Our cashier was kind enough to pretend my purchase was nothing more exciting than a box of matches or disposable plastic forks, but still I felt embarrassed. Never had I imagined I would have to buy condoms in public, much less in the company of one of my friends.
Back in the restaurant, Kate and Alex were still talking, and although I’d caught words here and there throughout, they had moved on to some other subject. I listened, trying to figure out what they were talking about, and I glanced again out the window, to the highway and beyond.
“And now we’ll just have to start making plans for a baby!” Kate joked. “I want a family so bad.” But before she could go into any detail, imaginary or not, I turned away from the red glow of the Target bullseye and cut her off. The waitress hadn’t come back for our orders yet, and there was time to fill with anything but the talk of babies, of getting pregnant, of any kind of family planning. “I’m sorry, but tell me everything about the wedding again,” I said, grinning. “And don’t leave anything out.”
