The Nosy Cashier

It was lunchtime on a regular workday. I headed out of the office to walk two blocks to a sandwich shop.

“What can I get for you ma’am?” said the gum smacking cashier behind the counter.

“Um, can I get the chicken salad sandwich please?” I responded.

“Sure.”

I walked along to the register while an attendant assembled my sandwich. As the cashier rung up my order I reached into my purse to find my wallet.

“Why do you always order the chicken salad?” she asked. I paused, not sure if I heard her correctly.

“What?”

“You always order the same sandwich when you come here. One time you even brought your friend here and you both ordered the exact same thing then too.” Even her gum chewing sounded judgmental.

 

“Well, uhhhhhh.” I didn’t know which was more surprising- the fact that this lady knew what I ordered the handful of times I came here or the fact that she was criticizing me for it.

“You should try the Italian turkey; it’s way better.”

I will admit that I was not particularly adventurous when I ate at this spot. The chicken salad sandwich had this special mayo, dried cranberries, walnuts, and, of course, chicken on freshly baked Italian bread. I was eating a bougie sandwich and it wasn’t cheap, especially if you ordered chips and a drink.

The one time I deviated from the usual and got a tuna sandwich, I didn’t like how it tasted. From then on I told myself I would not waste my hard earned money on food at this restaurant unless I was pretty sure I would enjoy it. Better safe than sorry.

After the incident with the nosy cashier, I didn’t go back to that restaurant for at least four months.

***

There are people who go to the same coffee shop or restaurant on a regular basis and the minute they walk in the cashier knows their name and their order without even having to ask. The person behind the counter refers to their customer’s order as “the regular.” They strike up a conversation about topics only friends would think to ask you about like your recent vacation to Guam or your family drama. These loyal customers seem to always show up to the shop around the same time each day and their presence becomes a part of the daily routine of the place.

I have never wanted to be that person. I purposely avoid going to the same food places super often because I don’t want them to know what I’m going to order before I do or know what time I’m going to show up before I even step foot through the door.

My encounter with the nosy cashier had turned me paranoid. Suddenly I would have to think about if I had gone to a restaurant within the past two weeks and if I had I wouldn’t allow myself to go back for fear of being recognized by the employees.

I began to question whether or not I was adventurous enough. Do I make an effort to get out of my comfort zone in all aspects of life? The answer is no. In some ways I do but not when it comes to my food choices. Being an avid foodie isn't good for my wallet but that's not the reason I don't try new things all the time. I like to eat but I'm entirely comfortable with not checking out new restaurants every week.

Not me.

 

Truth is I don’t like the idea of people, mainly strangers, thinking that I always play it safe. Sometimes my idea of a thrilling evening is playing board games or reading a new book. There’s nothing wrong with me enjoying the familiar. But when does that become unhealthy? I suppose that depends on the person. Everyone's idea of adventure is different. Beyoncé performing in front of millions of people is just a regular Tuesday for her but it'd be a completely new experience for me.

I'm not avoiding new experiences out of fear but because I turn my energy towards other things besides going to new restaurants or ordering something different off the menu. Discovering new foods isn't really super exciting to me. It's definitely delicious but not high on my list of hobbies. I'd rather learn something new than eat something new.

So to the lady at the sandwich shop- mind your own business. To everyone else- be adventurous, whatever that means to you.

What Kristen Stewart Taught Me

In 2008, I became obsessed with the Twilight series. Yes, that Twilight. The one that pitted sparkly vampires against extremely buff werewolves and eventually turned the words “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob” into declarations of war between friends. I still own most of the DVDs, the paperbacks, the boxed sets, the graphic novel adaptations, the movie soundtracks/scores, the special anniversary editions, and several posters, most of which are now worthless on the resale market. Sometimes I comfort myself by remembering that I never bought the Edward/Bella/Jacob action figures, which is a pretty pathetic statement to console myself with, but I digress. The poor investment decisions I made as a teenager are a whole other story.

Right now I want to focus on the star of the film, Kristen Stewart. She played Bella Swan, the main character who attracted a lot of paranormal attention. I used to watch a lot of cast interviews on YouTube, and the comments under the videos Kristen appeared in were riddled with hatred.

To the viewers she was always too awkward, too weird, too quiet, too shy, too uninterested in the interviewer, too socially inept, seemed angry, acted like she didn’t want to answer the questions, barely laughed at the interviewer’s jokes, and people wondered why she bothered going to interviews with that attitude.

And I loved it.

Classic Kristen Stewart

Years ago when I was at a family member’s house, my uncle started to ask me the typical older relative set of questions- how’s school, did you start applying to college yet, and of course the dreaded, what do you want to major in? Like many young adults, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life when I “grew up” and this line of questioning inevitably ended with me feeling like I was behind in life.

This time was no different. My uncle asked me what I wanted to major in and I said, “marketing.”

“Oh!” he said, surprised. “You know…if you do marketing you have to be able to talk to people.”

“Yeah,” I said slowly.

“You’re very quiet,” he said, digging the knife into my self-confidence a little deeper.  

I’m sure my uncle was trying to help me find my path but back then my insecurities over what I was going to do with my life were very high and this comment didn’t help. I doubted myself even further and questioned whether I was making the right decision. Maybe I wasn’t capable of doing marketing because of my temperament.

At their core, acting and marketing are somewhat similar. What they have in common (for the most part) is that you have to sell something to someone. In marketing it’s a product, a service, or an idea. In acting, it’s a character, an emotion, a set of experiences.  You have to be able to communicate with your body language, your facial expressions, and your words whether verbal or written.

Now here was Kristen Stewart an actress who felt comfortable embodying another character on screen but seemed withdrawn when having to act as herself in an interview. Despite her obvious discomfort, with the release of every Twilight movie she appeared on the press tours. Even though she made a living off of putting herself out there in front of millions of moviegoers, she was still super awkward. 

Preach.

KStew made me feel better about myself. If she could show up on The Late Show with David Letterman and do her job then why couldn’t I? Not show up on Letterman obviously, but ignore the people who thought being outgoing was the only way to succeed in life. I know I’m awkward and I own it. I even play it up sometimes for laughs.

Now I have bigger problems besides my awkwardness… like what I’m going to do with the five copies of Twilight I own.

I'm A Quitter

Some people segment their lives based on their age- in their 20s they acted one way, in their 30s they were interested in some item, and so on or so forth.

I segment my life into phases. There was my piano phase, which lasted from the time I was about seven to my middle school years. At first I was genuinely interested in learning how to play until I realized I had to practice consistently almost everyday to get better.

Then there was my knitting phase, which was rather short compared to my other phases. I lived out this phase in late 2015/early 2016 and successfully knitted my own scarf, pretty well I might add. I bought a few other spools of knitting fabric, which are sitting in my closet gathering dust at this very moment.

Then there was my author-in-training phase, which took place in middle school right after I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and decided I was going to be the next J.K. Rowling. I wrote creative stories for a while after that. I even went so far as to co-write stories with one of my friends. That phase ended when I became so self critical that I’d delete a paragraph immediately after writing because I thought it wasn’t good enough.

I hope you’re seeing the common theme running through my life phases. I’ve quit a lot of things.  It starts off with me learning the basics of a subject and dropping it once my inner critic gets too loud or I just get lazy. I didn’t start to label myself as a quitter until my freshman year in college and now that I’m a senior, the realization that one of the biggest parts of my life (a.k.a. school) is going to be missing. I’m about to have a lot more free time.  

A few months ago I was lucky enough to attend a Women’s Summit at my job where guest speaker, Angela Duckworth, came in and talked about the importance of perseverance (or as she called it, grit). She said talent doesn’t always equal success. What matters is a combination of work ethic and talent. And you can’t master something if you quit it when it starts getting tough.  

I was blown away. This woman just described my life. Not only that but there were other people in the room nodding their heads in agreement, turning to their friends and whispering “that’s so me,” and hanging on to every word she said. Other people have this issue too.

Of course, sometimes quitting things is a good thing. Not every hobby or passion project is going to resonate with you. However, you have to think about why you’ve chosen to give something up. Is it because you are genuinely uninterested in the subject or is it because you were lazy, afraid to fail, didn’t have time, etc.? I’ve always been someone who loves to start things and throw out ideas but actually following through until the end is somewhat of a foreign concept.

So how do I change my mindset from the person that is a “jack of all trades, master of none” type to someone who hones her craft whether it be a small hobby or a career related specialty?

I am going to challenge myself to actually finish something. Or to keep practicing something. Even when it’s hard, or I think I don’t have enough time for it when I actually could if I stopped wasting it. This blog is my way of keeping myself accountable. Almost everything I’ve ever followed through with or finished happened because other people depended on me to finish whatever I had started.