Yesterday I found myself and my groceries in line behind a clean cut, middle aged fellow trying to hang onto a LOT of donuts and bananas. Other than his struggling not to drop everything I really wasn't paying much attention to him. So anyways, I'm behind this guy minding my own business when I realize that in addition to the donuts and bananas he has a pile of one hundred Walmart gift cards that he wants the cashier to add $5 a piece to.
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The guy looks over to me and apologizes. I give him a smile and quietly reply “it's fine”. What he doesn't know is that I'm stuck in town for the next three hours waiting for Zoe's drawing class to end and it really doesn't matter to me if I spend that time standing here or somewhere else. If I were a chatterer I'd tell him that and relieve his anxiety. I'd tell him all about how my 16 year old home schooled daughter who has never set foot in a classroom in her life is attending the college and how I'm just running errands and killing time until she's done. I might even brag about how creative she is or of my hope that she'll meet someone her own age and make new friends. But I don't, I don't do that sort of thing.
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On autopilot my brain wonders “who in the world would want a $5 gift card?” Pretty quickly I decide that he's either a preacher or used car salesman. At least that's what he looks like.
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(are we up to 50 yet?)
Another apology “I really am sorry”. I smile meekly again and say “it's okay”. And it is, except for my brain. It's decided he's pimping God and that tomorrow morning somewhere in this frozen tundra (okay it's not technically a “tundra”) will be a gathering of lost souls whose emptiness, vulnerability and despair will be rewarded with donuts and practically worthless gift cards. I imagine how dirty the donuts would taste in my mouth....how cheap I would feel at such a feeble attempt at collective belonging. Okay, enough! I laugh at myself and decide to still the mental chatter and clear my mind of absolutely everything right there in the middle of Walmart. As I shut my eyes and breath slowly and deeply to center myself I wonder if he thinks I'm trying to summon patience or stave off frustration. I wonder if his imaginings are as ludicrous as mine?
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When the stack is almost gone I smile at him while he apologizes again and thanks me for my patience which makes me laugh. When I finally finish checking out and approach the exit, the alarm goes off. After rifling through my entire cart the greeter apologizes because she can't find anything to write in her door dinging log. We wait some more while she copies my receipt and I smile at Larry because it definitely seemed like randomness and chance, or the universe, or whatever, was helping us as much as she could to pass the 3 hours we didn't know what to do with. :)
6 comments:
How's Zoe liking her class? It's pretty cool to go to college classes at sixteen. Caleb loved it.
I enjoyed your check-out story. It was as if I was right there with you... scan~type~swipe... only I'm a little impatient with this guy. But at least he's polite about his 100 $5 gift card purchase.
Three hours to waste... sounds like heaven to me:) Glad the Universe was helping out with wasting time for you.
Hey!
It's a little too early to tell but I think she's enjoying it quite a bit. The instructor's kind of a hard ass (at least compared to any drawing 1 classes I ever took) so she's definitely being challenged. Today's just the third full length class of the semester so it's all still pretty new.
I'm really holding my breath for her that she embraces it and finds some people she likes. :)
What an exciting opportunity for Zoe! I hope she likes it. It took my girl a while to adjust but she had fun in the end.
I can totally relate to the crazy-long wait times. I have every coffee shop and grocery store in a 50 mile radius mapped out. :-) That, and I pack my tote bag and get paperwork/planning done.
Now I want to know what that dude's deal was with the gift cards...
hahaha but wait...you said you smiled at Larry...but I didn't get the feeling he was with you - are you fictionalizing your husband as the guy buying the gift cards or were the gift cards fictionalized or ....however this all went down it was hilarious to read,
...much like your comment at my blog about Barbie's friend...I had great laugh over that because it sounds so true.
Hey Tara!
Yeah I want to know what he was up to too...I can't imagine really...
Hey Sandy!
The only fiction was me making up stories about the guy being a preacher or whatever when in reality I have no idea who he was, or what he was doing with all of those cards.
Larry avoids check out lines if he can help it (he was sitting on a bench somewhere) so that's why he only showed up later as we were walking out. The first words out of his mouth after I finished checking out was "how many gift cards did that guy have?!"
I'm glad my Barbie fantasy made you smile though. It was a fun post :)
thanks for the explanation - i was trying to figure out what was fiction and what was reality, ....the mystery of Larry is solved.
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