tie dye #38

What is it about tie dye that makes strangers talk to me? Last night at the co-op, we were setting our purchases on the conveyer belt, and the yuppie behind me in line required that I make eye contact with him. I thought I was in trouble.

“Did you make that shirt?” he asked. I was wearing my favorite shirt, which is pastel tie dye.

“No,” I said, “No, I didn’t.” They always ask this question, and they always want me to say yes. “But someone did,” I said, in an attempt to comfort him.

A heavily tattooed worker stocking magazines approved of my witty assertion.

“Do you know who made it?” he asked. “Was it a vendor?”

“Uh….” I risked disappointing him again. “I bought it at a grocery store in Bishop,” I said. The yuppie and his wife nodded in approval. “At Manner Market.”

“Got that 395 charm, huh?” the yuppie said. That’s the freeway that runs through Bishop like Bishop is a bead and the 395 is the string of the necklace. Or Bishop is a wart on the butt crack formed by the valley between the Sierras and the Whites, and the 395 is a road.

“Looks good against the Sierras,” he said.

“Everything looks good against the Sierras,” I said.