SEPTEMBER
You have two unpleasant personalities within you, Virgo.
The first, is a people pleaser. This version of you is constantly contorting your body, behavior, brain, etc. to fit the shape you guess the world wants it to be. This version of you is a rule follower. She wonders years after receiving a gift if she “seemed grateful enough.” This version worries she talks too much (you do) or too little (you don’t) and can spend an entire evening trying to make sure she isn’t making every conversation revolve around her (pointless exercise—just assume you are).
This is the side of you that inspired a friend to recommend you “go everywhere with a morphine drip.” That certainly would improve your anxiety levels, Virgo; but without the tools to drip drop that sweet relief into your veins, you have to rely on other methods of dissipating your people pleasing impulse. The fastest way to do that? Becoming furious.
Yes, unfortunately, fury is the other side of the coin. The only time you’re completely yourself is when you are filled with hot hot rage. Thankfully, this month you’ll have the opportunity to Be You, because you will be accused of shoplifting by an unpleasant cashier.
You’ve spent several hundred dollars at this shop over the years, which is not an easy feat since most items in the shop are $3 (and still overpriced). It is the type of thrift store that makes people feel like they’re treasure hunting in the best of times, or as though one wrong sneeze could cause them to perish beneath an avalanche of garish, pointy figurines in the worst of times.
You take people to this shop when they’re visiting from out of town, because showing people New York usually comes down to choosing places that balance grossness and uniqueness in a pleasing way. No one wants to only have a lovely experience in New York. They want there to be something sort of gross about it so they can laugh about rats and piss with everyone else laughing about rats and piss.
Which I suppose is why you have spent years bringing innocent souls to a thrift shop covered in layers of dirt, where most things are broken and the cashier reminds you (in appearance and demeanor) of when Nagini the snake pretends to be a human woman to lure Harry Potter into a trap.
It is dangerous to be a people pleaser around this snake woman. You are aware that to a personality like hers, your people pleasing nature is an invitation to pick and pick at your choices until your apologies combust, causing you to explode. You know this woman could not leave a conversation happily unless you swear to her that upon exiting her domain you’ll dive into the ocean and begin a new life down there—where you won’t behave so badly in shops run by snakes pretending to be people.
This month, you’ll visit this shop run by a horcrux in search of some candlesticks. When you find two pleasing models, your husband puts them in an empty tote bag so you two can more easily explore the other wares. Like most candlesticks, these candlesticks are rather large.
After finding no other forgotten items (it’s not lost on me that the shop has a very Room of Requirement vibe) worth purchasing, you go to the cashier to pay. When your husband reaches into his tote bag to remove the two large items, the cashier begins a monologue so ludicrous and repetitive that I wish I didn’t have to warn you about it. But here I go.
Basically, she will be enraged that you put merchandise in a tote bag while you were still shopping. When your husband shows her the empty tote bag to confirm there was no theft, she will repeat over and over again, I’m not a policeman, I’m a cashier!!!!!! After all, accusing people of crimes is for civilians, exonerating them is for…the police?
The charges don’t stop there. She will accuse you of changing the price tag on one of the candlesticks, which she says in a very GOTCHA kind of way until she realizes that all of the tags on the candlestick reveal the exact same price. She hisses, Oh nevermind….but her crude error doesn’t sway her confidence in her characterization of you as a thief.
I have spent so little time observing the habits of thieves on earth, Virgo; but is the common way to steal to go to the cashier and pay for two items? Is that normally how thieves operate? They just…buy stuff?
If you would have been speaking to someone with a sense of humanity or compassion, you would have quickly apologized for putting the candlesticks in your forbidden tote bag. In fact, you probably would have apologized for way too long and ended up causing a second problem. But to a black hole of misery like the Nagini woman, an apology is just an invitation to launch into another tirade lambasting your alleged hubris (the hubris of trying to purchase two items).
After about two full minutes of the snake cashier sharing her full-bodied incredulity that you would be so disrespectful as to put two large candlesticks in a bag then pay for them, you and your husband exchange a silent eye contact message communicating Nagini is bonkers, let’s go. You’ll tell the cashier that on second thought you won’t need to steal (pay for in full) the candlesticks anymore.
Your dismissal of the remainder of her theatricality seems to make her even angrier, and she will tell you in many different ways that she doesn’t need your business. I beg to differ here—the shop has two huge plastic bins on the ground collecting rainwater and insulation just hangs down from the ceiling….she needs somebody’s business!
During the entire exchange you’ll keep your inner people pleaser on a tight leash, knowing that if she gets out and rears her head you’ll be doomed to stay in this room forever, weeping and apologizing until the snake woman eats you for supper. Thankfully, Nagini grants you the favor of magically turning off your people pleasing receptors by making you irate.
As you’re walking away, she shouts, I hope you get arrested at the next shop!
A calm envelops you. After all, this is the only time you really get to be you, isn’t it? When you’re so livid that you forget all the ways you normally work to be considerate?
At last, you let your ire take the wheel. You’re fifteen feet away from her at this point, people have stopped inspecting relics of the past to stare at the commotion, and you scream TAKE A PAINTING CLASS OR SOMETHING, JESUS CHRIST.
Yes. That’s the true you. Since you are older than you once were and therefore less mean than you once were, TAKE A PAINTING CLASS is what you say when you want to tell someone that they noticeably have nothing to live for and should change that.
Everyone knows that snakes can’t hold onto paint brushes, Virgo, so Nagini doesn’t take this recommendation in stride. She yells back that you and your husband aren’t ever welcome in the shop again (for your incredible sin of trying to purchase $59 worth of candlesticks) and you yell back that she should DEVELOP A JOURNAL HABIT, JESUS CHRIST.
For someone with zero religious inclination, it appears you are unable to scream angry sentences at snakes without invoking the lord’s name. Or the lord’s son’s name? I never know which one is the lord—don’t @ me.
Despite it being the only time you’re truly free, it doesn’t feel good to be angry, Virgo. It is impractical to rely on the Nagini shopkeeps of this world to enrage you frequently enough to become self actualized, so I encourage you to find a way to bridge your two wretched personalities in service of one day becoming less terrifying company.
hahaha omg I'm sorry this happened to you because it's such bullshit but I am also supremely grateful this happened to you because this is one of my favorite of your newsletters ever. TAKE A PAINTING CLASS is a fire line to shout at someone.