Short takes

I’m at Target with Tom in search of Merona boxers, Andrew’s brand. A shopper scrutinizing Fruit of the Loom points us to the next isle and joins us as we ponder. Her son is keen on Meronas too. Here we crouch and murmur, two grown women, conversational in the nostalgia of picking out underwear for our grown sons.

What size, really? Medium looks too small, doesn’t it? She says her son’s an athlete - something rigorous like curling. Andrew rides a bike all over Toronto, I tell her. Trim waistlines. Mediums then.
Knit or woven? The knits are softer, Tom interjects. But which ones? Something fun - the green flamingos? Andrew likes green. Or maybe the understated black with thin gray stripes.

As we hand mediums back and forth, the other mom reminds me of a happily married Liz Lemon, eloquent and droll, easy to like. I want her to take the last of the wide green and navy stripes in her son’s size. ‘Naw, go ahead, I’m not attached to them,’ she grins. Tom and I proceed to check out as she squints at the penguin print.

Here I am two days later, folding clothes and wondering what that was. Pawed through racks at Target felt like the backyard fence, the coffee klatsch, the hair salon. What is it about women that has us relaxing into the company of strangers?

As I set down the laundry, a frail finger cut rips wide open on the basket of socks and undies. Were my Target compatriot at hand, I’d show her the welling blood. Attuned to small time adventure, she’d warmly fuss as mothers do.  Not that men do not, or cannot do the same. Women are just more practiced. As the men catch up, we are all the wiser.

Painting by Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, The Marquise de Pezay (or Pezé), and the Marquise de Rougé with Her Sons Alexis and Adrien