The Cold Cashier

I was at a party with other lesbians. People were spending the night because they were from out of town. There was a girl doing drugs in one room. My dad was there, and he was going to buy me some jewelery. Then I was in a big gym or autotorium that was very crowded. I was buying beads and little jewelery pendants. There was a long purchase line, mainly women in it. There were two lines parallel to each other. The line had a slight competitive each, people making sure no one was going in front of them. When I got to the front of the line, a white woman behind a table (one of the two cashiers) waited for me to get out my beads so that she could price them. I had them all in the change compartment of my wallet mixed in with my change. I felt frustrated that I hadn't gotten them ready for the cashier ahead of time. She was in a hurry and had the same somewhat cold demeanor of the women in line. To make matters even more complicated, I had previously purchased items also in my change purse. For instance, I got out one pendant that was fairly large, maybe a heart, and I said, "I'm not buying this here. This was already mine." She just looked at me, and there was the problem that she might think I was lying. The jewelery that I was buying (all beads and pendants) and the jewelery that I had already bought also all matched, making it more complicated. They were all sky blue, yellow, and brown. I had about four pendants. Most of the beads were yellow, but I had also selected a few brown ones. The cold cashier picked out the brown ones and told me to wait. Then she took them over to a line of women against the wall who she also worked with. Afterwards, she brought them back, with no explanation to me. After the purchase, I was led to a smaller room, that had been sectioned off in the auditorium. While the big auditorium was crowded, this smaller room had only a few people in it. One was a girl who had been made fun of in my private school, an intellectual, Jewish girl. Then my brother, David, was also put in the room. The room had no way out except for a jail-like door with bars. People started looking into the room like we were caged animals. David was busy, quietly doing his own thing. At first I didn't know if the jail was the other side of the bars or the side I was on. Then it struck me that we were clearly the ones in jail and that we had been put in jail for being different. I remembered the cashier showing my brown beads to the other workers and realized that the other workers were inspectors. One reason I had been put in the jail was because I had not chosen all yellow beads. Then it turned out David had been quiet because he had been figuring out a smart way to get the jail door open to get us out. He did it, and we wandered out of the jail, hoping to blend in with the crowd. As I wandered out of the jail, I made exaggerated motions with my legs and arms as if I was an animal. It was actually similar to a water walk that people do in the pool that reminds me of tip-toeing while people are sleeping (like a cat burglar might do). I went to the cashier behind the table and asked for my wallet back, because I realized that she'd taken my wallet before putting me in the jail. She handed it back to me with no expression, and I felt so good to have my wallet.