SquawkRadio

C’mon, you know you’ve done it. You wake up with PMS and figure you’ll make an emergency run to the grocery store for chocolate, even though you look like hell — but who cares, you never see anyone there who knows you? And you meet your minister, your fifth grade teacher, the guy you’re secretly in love with and you’ve dreamed about for years, and a TV news anchor there to report on overweight American adults and for some reason, he films you, clutching your one-pound Hershey bar and snarling.

Not that this has ever happened to me.

Yeah, right.

So the other day Scott and I went to Cosco to get a corporate card. We spend a lot of money there (“Can you help us carry that twenty-gallon jar of dill pickles out to the car? Put it right next seventy-five roll package of toilet paper.”) and figured the corporate card, which refunds some tiny part of your purchases, would pay for itself. The trick is, I’m the corporate entity and Scott wanted me there in case they questioned it. And he assured me my whole job would be to stand there while he filled out the form and coughed up the fee.

Now let me stop for a minute and point out that being an author provides a fair amount of anonymity. People sometimes know your name (“I think my mom has read you.”), but they never know your face. So I went schlepping into Cosco with no cosmetics and, well, I’d been working in the yard so I hadn’t had a shower and I was wearing this grubby shirt and jeans with dirt on the knees and a gimme hat to cover my weird hair.

Are you getting the idea?

So Scott fills out the form and the girl who’s putting it into the computer says, “Christina Dodd? I’ve read Christina Dodd.” She looks at me and says, “Are you Christina Dodd?”

My first thought is to duck below the counter, sit on the floor and hug my knees. But I’m an adult. I should act like an adult. My mom said so. So I say, “Yes, I’m Christina Dodd.” That starts quite the kerfuffle. The girl introduces me to everyone behind the desk, and they all act delighted and say stuff like, “Do we have any of your books here?” (They actually did, but I didn’t realize it at the time.) I give out pens (Christina Dodd, Cool Suspense, Hot Romance, www.christinadodd.com) and sign autographs. And I know as soon as they have a minute away from the service desk, they’ll race to my website, look at my photo and say, “Hey, that woman today wasn’t Christina Dodd. Christina Dodd wears make-up and has hair that doesn’t stick straight out around her ears.”

While I was at Cosco, I did the only thing I could do — I acted with dignity and grace. In the car, I did what any woman would do — I blamed my husband. (“Stand there while you fill out the form because NOBODY WILL KNOW?! Are you CRAZY?! What color is the sky IN YOUR WORLD?!”)

Now excuse me, I need to pack up my house and call the moving van. “>