Aspotted from the dining hall at IKEA I note a group of people, with striking hair colours, all holden to some Blahaj. I spot them as on of my own, eager- i tell my roommate- “look! Queers!”
“It’s not polite to stare- maybe you should point at them and say it louder!”
I know I’m being teased, I pout, she laughs, we pack away our lunches and we head to the store. She beckons me over to the Blåhaj pit. Quickly I hop in- play around in it for a moment and grab a freind to walk through the store with.
Not before long, we bump into the group from before, they see my shark, I see theirs, instantly we’re able to know what we are. We wave exactly and exclaim! “Shark!” Before we go along our merry ways.
We make it to the end of the store, nothing in hand, begrudgingly, the item she wanted wasn’t in stock.
“Umm… I.. may have lost my mitt, can we go look for it?”
Because of course that happens. I’m a ditz. She looks at me a little annoyed
“Alright, we’ll search the entire store, we just got to retrace our steps”
And so we do, I check the shark pit I was playing in, the bowls I was admiring, the kiddie lamps I was testing out. No dice. We decided to cut our loses and try to ask lost and found.
And suddenly, we walk back into that same group from earlier. I see them up close and personal. I wanna say hi! My mind’s racing, I see the collars that some of them have on. I pause- my mind draws a blank. So I bark!
One of them barks back. I realized I just barked at someone in an ikea and scurry off- embarrassed like. My roommate laughs.
“Ahh what was that! You just went up to their faces and barked at them? Jeez you’re awkward- That was real funny, though. I’m not gonna let you live it down Never change kiddo.”
I stammer out an incoherence while walking to the lost and found. “I-I just d,,didn’t know what to say!!! Plus she responded in kind! You saw that right? A-and! I’m older than you so don’t patronize me!”
She gives me a smirk and we look at the lost and found. No dice whatsoever. Duh. Makes sense. We agree to cut our losses. Not like I don’t have spare mitts anyway. Shame- I just found them again the other day.
We make it to the checkout empty handed, and down a mitt. As we consider our options once we get through, no suprise who shows up but the other transfem group.
I slink back behind my roommate. I’m a good bit shorter than she is. I realize I embarrassed myself earlier and don’t wanna make another mess. She looks back at me and holds my hand and smiles.
“Y’know, if you want to say hi, you can you know that right? Do you want me to help? Want me to compliment their collars for you?”
She seems taken it back a little
“Hey I mean you’re the one who wants to go say hi, I’m not doin this for you kiddo. I’ll be with you though.”
This IS in their earshot, so they sorta take notice, and oh great they’re here. I kinda freeze on the spot, and look down at the floor. My roommate nudges me “c‘mon use your words”
“Use your words pup” says the girl I’m trying to speak to. Oh great my first impression and this is what’s happening. “I,,, like your collar..” with praise from all parties, and still thinking about the mitt, I ask them.. “have any of you bychance seen a mitt? We’ve been looking around for it for a while now”. One of the girls chimes - “oh it’s yours? I was wondering who lost their pretty pink mitts! I found it and put it by the lamps!”
Wow! Isn’t that nice, my roommate goes back in to grab my mitt, while I’m surrounded by a group of a half dozen transfems I socialize with for a bit. We exchange contact info- and when my roommate returns, we leave them and I save goodbye.
“Y’know as funny as you are i’m glad you were able to talk to them. You did good- proud of you.”
Moral of the story, being a weird shy girl helps me meet cool people!
