Checked My Anecdote At The Door
On a shopping spree in Virginia I drove past the bowling alley and took the next right into the strip center parking lot. The Big Lots is a store that sells the world's over stocked merchandise at a discount. The atmosphere in there is part garage sale and part well managed discount merchandise establishment. The goods are often cheap but rarely exactly what you want. I look in now and again to satisfy my desire for that curiously attractive garage sale mystique. Garage sales are another place to get not exactly what you want. You get things other people thought they wanted but obviously didn't, and are willing to part with for a little change and the moderate hassle of setting up a retail operation in their driveways, on weekends. Going to garage sales is a little more work than going to Big Lots, sort of like solving a puzzle in a parallel universe by extracting clues from classified ads and then consulting maps to get to the treasure of a homespun, open air, retail outlet that did not exist the previous week, and to which, according to the ads from the more elite purveyors, you better not show up early.
I just went into the kitchen and got more juice with which to flush my system of this minor common cold that is threatening to invade my well being. But I forgot to bring it back in here with me so I will go back and get it now, excuse me one minute.
Yep, there it was, on the counter where I left it. Cranberry/grape this time and Tropicana OJ last time. Orange juice is going to get very expensive soon so I am trying to drink it while the getting is good. I won't drink it when it gets expensive. When it gets expensive I will compare it to some other liquid I enjoy, like beer, and go for the beer every time. I won't blame the company for the price hike. Supply and demand, frozen crops, these things I somewhat understand but what the hell is up with all these Tropicana varieties now on the shelves? The other shoppers grow weary of me standing so long in front of the juices. Original is the only one for me. I do not want five different choices between amounts of pulp, nor the extra vitamins and minerals added. Freedom of choice my ass. I am shackled by choice. And yes, thank you, I will consider moving to a communist country to see how I like it without so many choices.
After many minutes roaming the aisles at Big Lots it became imperative that I buy something. It would not do to start a shopping spree without buying something. So I picked up some tea bags, but only after worrying myself to death over how fresh they would be. Then a bottle of rubbing alcohol for 80 cents. Didn't even have to think about it. Toothpaste? Need it, bought it, also 80 cents. Would you look at that?--a 10 piece manicure set for a buck fifty. Got me one of those. Has two pairs of nail clippers, emery boards, some cuticle tools which I will be forever afraid to use, and a metal file and some scissors. I was shopping now, picking up some steam.
It was like juggling, badly, trying to carry all that stuff around so when I got in the line to check out I rested the many items (I didn't tell you I bought four boxes of that tea) on a display of light weight sweat shirts. Which, come to think of it, I need, so I wrapped all the loose items in a large green one. The shirt was the priciest item of the day at four dollars but adding up its now utilitarian value as a knapsack I still think quite the bargain.
I waited patiently while the other two shoppers and the cashier engaged in what may not have been the most efficient customer/employee relationship but if I wanted efficiency above all else I could shop online (as if I could ever find a 10 piece manicure set for a dollar-fifty, online.) There is now coming the whole reason for my making this considerable effort to punish you with the minutia of a single morning in my life. The inspirational nugget if you will; the shred of pork fat stuck between my teeth. I am flossing now.
The cashier, all yakety-yakety up to this point, was mute to me. She was not rude but she was not friendly, or not really not friendly but not loquacious, as she had been for the previous 10 minutes I had waited in line. That's fine really, someone getting down to business will not be faulted by me. But as I walked off she started right back up with the next customers in line, a man and wife. The man had some little anecdote handy and if I had known that was required to get some human interaction from this cashier, I would have had one ready too. His was something about the weather. Excuse me, a weather anecdote after the weather turns cold? I had checked my anecdotes at the door, thinking I was entering the building of a well oiled national discount merchandise chain whose business was the business of selling, not listening to my tired old anecdotes, which, given the chance, just a single chance, would have been a humdinger to anybody listening. I mean, they're still laughing down at the post office about that funny thing I once said, I forget what it was, but it was funny funny. But it's true that it took them awhile to warm up to me down at the PO. It was maybe two years before they laughed at me, I mean with me. I got all that stuff at the Big Lots for 14 dollars. It was a pretty good trip. I didn't go in there to make friends.
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