It was just an ordinary trip to the grocery store, but I was
happy. I had just finished typing the
epilogue of my novel, and nothing was going to ruin my mood. The lines were long and only two clerks were
working up front. One of them radioed in
for backup. Soon, a man wearing a green
apron with onion peels hanging from the straps invited me over to check-stand
number-three. It made sense that he gave
me this opportunity. It was my
turn. I was the next person in line that
hadn’t yet emptied my cart onto the conveyor belt.
“Sideburns” must have seen the opening while turning the
corner back by the deli. He sped-walked
past the end of three aisles and two packed check-out lines before clipping the
edge of my cart. I felt a small breezed
hit me from his wake. Sure, Sideburns
only had one item, but there’s protocol here, ladies and gentlemen. I would have let him slip past my cart of
roughly twenty random products, but he didn’t even give me the chance to
offer. Instead, Sideburns slammed down
his gallon-jug of vodka in front of me and starting digging into his pants
pockets for cash.
After haggling with the produce clerk over the hefty amount
of tax added to the sum, Sideburns grumpily agreed to pay full price. He dug out every bill and coin he could
find. He was eighteen cents short.
Now mind you… this was a well-dressed, middle-aged, overly
groomed, after-shave doused, loafer wearing urbanite with a fine-knit sweater
tied around his neck. His wrist-watch
was probably worth more than my 1984 pop-up tent-trailer. Normally, I would have tossed a quarter his
way, but not this time. I had to see how
this one played out.
Sideburns couldn’t get his debit card to scan. Mr. Produce shrugged. The line piled up behind me. A baby started to cry. More card rejections prompted profane
muttering. My strange sense of curiosity
kicked into overdrive. I decided to kick
the hornets’ nest.
“Try swiping your
card faster…like you really mean it!”
Sideburns ignored me. “Faster,
from top to bottom in one quick motion.”
He swiped as fast as he could muster and banged his knuckles onto the
side of the check-stand. A man two
customers behind me snorted a laugh. Mr.
Produce scrunched his nose in order to move his over-sized eyeglasses back into
place. Two more scans…two more
rejections. Sideburns let slip a few
more choice words.
“Try a different card,” I offered, leaning in close. He opened his wallet and flipped through an impressive
array of plastic. A Platinum Visa was
finally settled upon.
Feeling snarky, I chimed, “That’s a good one. I’m all Platinum these days.”
“Can I get twenty dollars cash back?” Sideburns asked.
Mr. Produce answered, “Sorry sir, not on credit cards. Debit only.”
An elderly lady behind me let out an overly-audible sigh.
The sale finally rang through and the vodka bottle was
wrapped in a paper bag. Mr. Produce
thanked him and told him to have a great day.
Sideburns grabbed the bottle and turned to leave without saying anything
in return.
I immediately called out, “Sir, hang on a minute.” He stopped and turned toward me. I bent down and reached a hand out toward the
ground, scraping a shiny quarter up from the floor where Sideburns had been
standing.
I offered out the coin, saying, “Now you can afford to buy
another one.” I flashed my toothiest
grin.
He accepted the quarter and abruptly turned to leave.
“Thank you, come again,” I hollered, just to see if he’d
respond. He was already half out the
door.
Although my primal instinct was to knock the guy in the
temple with his gallon-jug of hooch, I had just finished writing my book and
was having a good day. This guy wasn’t
going to ruin it. With my book on my
mind, though, I couldn’t help but to think… How would Kram have handled the
situation? My guess is; somewhere closer
to the vodka-bottle-to-the-noggin scenario.
Mink Island is available for download at:
Barnes & Noble http://bit.ly/MinkIslandBN
