SWEDISH VENUS

SWEDISH VENUS AND
THE BITCH FROM SUBURBIA
The new health food store in Laguna Hills was having a grand opening and a huge crowd showed up. There were so many people that the entire parking lot, which was a block long, was full to overflowing. Who knew that there were so many healthy, highly conscious people around? It was impossible to park in the shoving, honking crowd but I knew a secret parking place- the alley behind the stores usually has extra spaces. I drove around the building but it was jammed back there too. Finally I found one semi-legal spot halfway down the alley and parked, and then realized a truck parked in the middle of the road was being unloaded and could not get through if I parked there. I was fretting, but I would have to move. A car came toward me from the opposite end of the alley. There was a nice, neat woman behind the wheel, with her hair fresh from the beauty parlor, and wearing designer clothes, in her new Lexus, and a girlfriend in the seat beside her. She rolled down the car window and hollered angrily, "Back up!" Puzzled, I answered, "Back up yourself! I was here first!" She rolled the window all the way down, stuck her neatly coiffed head out and screeched, "Fuck you, you ugly bitch!" Completely amazed, all I could think of in response was "Aw, make my day!"
She slammed her car into reverse and squealed away. Then I noticed that the workman unloading the truck was staring at us in amazement.

Later, I was sitting the Borders bookstore coffeeshop when a unique woman came in with an energetic toddler. She had silky light brown hair and was wearing a pale beige cashmere sheath, but she was bulging very much around the middle. She was pregnant. She glided into a seat with a great deal of feminine grace and confidence. Her complexion was amazing, like a translucent apricot. I had never seen such self-confidence and glamour in a pregnant American woman, and she had such a mysterious foreign air that I wondered if she was European. Just then she called out to her little boy, "Vanta po mig! " in a melodious voice. Swedishl She was Swedishl "Ar du Svenska?" I asked her timidly. Thank goodness she answered in good English, as I only know a few words in Swedish. We got into a brief conversation, and she was almost mystically gracious, to match her appearance. She told me she was expecting her second child and her little boy was in Swedish school. I had never heard of a Swedish school. There weren't any when I was a child. Soon I had to leave. I walked out, resisting the impulse to turn around and see if she had vanished into the higher realm she had descended from.