(photo courtesy of WPRO.com)

Here’s a post-hurricane picture of a beach a few miles from our house. Half of Rhode Island doesn’t have electricity, and many won’t have power again for six or seven days.

My mother is not one of them, thank goodness. NancyK and Mike lost their electricity this morning, but it came back on later in the day. The hurricane was “only” a category 1 storm, but the heavy winds took down a lot of trees all over the state. Many main roads are closed and people have been asked to stay home for another day.

We lucked out. A large tree limb missed hitting the house and my brother reported everything looked fine.

Meanwhile, back at the lake, I baked my tenth peach pie. I must be insane, because I decorated the top with cut-out dough shaped like leaves.

Last week I lost my watch. Last week I went to Walmart and bought a new one. I didn’t realize it had an “extra-large band” (even though the tag said so in big letters), so Saturday I drove back to town to exchange it.

I also needed another bottle of tequila for band practice, but you probably don’t need to know that.

If you’ve ever exchanged anything at Walmart you know that you have to show it to the employee guarding the shopping carts by the store entrance. Which I did.  The elderly gentleman stationed there took the watch, scanned it, printed out the yellow sticker and then did a double take when he looked at the receipt.

“You paid thirty dollars for this?” And then he rolled his eyes in disgust, with “there’s a sucker born every minute” look on his face.

“It has a nightlight”, I mumbled. And I hurried away, as if I had something to be ashamed of.

I was halfway to the Returns section (where I would stand in line behind two women and six rambunctious little boys for ten minutes before being told I had to return the watch to the jewelry department) when I was tempted to turn back and tell the nosy old skinflint that it was none of his business if I paid twenty-eight dollars and sixty-six cents for a Timex watch with a stretchable band and an illuminated dial so when I wake up in the middle of the night in motel rooms on road trips I can see what time it is without turning on a light and waking up my husband, who has sleep apnea.

But I didn’t, of course, because I am polite. I am always patient with the very old ladies who block the aisles in the supermarket and the 90-year old men who want to chat about the price of ice cream. I’m never rude, even when they sometimes follow me around the store and wink at me. Okay, I might swear under my breath when I’m putting the groceries in my truck, and that one time an elderly woman backed her car into me (into me, not my car) I yelled and smacked her bumper.

No one has ever scoffed at my extravagant taste in watches until last Saturday (I still believe the illuminated dial was worth the extra $10), but in the past few years I’ve noticed total strangers have all sorts of opinions that they are very anxious to share with me. Even when I’m not talking to them. Or asking their advice. Or even making eye contact.

I don’t know why.
Maybe I look as if I need help.

Ya think?