Monday, August 20, 2012
Friends
Today I was buying paper towels for my cleaning lady at Walgreen's during my lunch hour, when I was approached by an pungent, disheveled-looking middle aged man with something on his mind.
"Walnut candlesticks," he said. (Or something along those lines -- a verbatim transcript may prove difficult here.) "It's the fucking government. Got to wash the phone books."
"Excuse me?" I said, obviously just not getting it.
"The cars of motel donkey boots," he clarified. "Fucking dog food!"
At this point I excused myself politely, by which I mean I fled three aisles away as quickly and unobtrusively as humanly possible. But this was not to be the last I heard of him.
"Motherfucking hot dogs!" I heard him yell to no one in particular as I stood in line for the self checkout with my suddenly unimportant-seeming purchase of a family sized bag of Hershey's Miniatures. "I'll fuck you up!"
He also seemed to be browsing the $5 DVDs in the impulse item area of the checkout, though, so I somewhat hoped he'd be lulled into peace by a felicitously-timed copy of the Mel Gibson/Helen Hunt classic "What Women Want."
It was not to be. Soon "I'll fuck you up!" became a repeated refrain between bouts of unintelligible mumbling. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought he was auditioning to replace Ramona on Real Housewives.
And as if to underscore the ridiculousness of the situation, the self checkout began reprimanding me for having an unauthorized item in the bagging area. An unfounded charge, I assure you.
But regardless, I got my receipt and got the hell out, just as the crack Walgreen's security team was approaching my new friend to inquire as to what, if anything, they might be able to do for him. My guess is that he was frustrated at being unable to locate the latest products in the Covergirl Queen Collection, but I could be way off base with this one.
Today I was buying paper towels for my cleaning lady at Walgreen's during my lunch hour, when I was approached by an pungent, disheveled-looking middle aged man with something on his mind.
"Walnut candlesticks," he said. (Or something along those lines -- a verbatim transcript may prove difficult here.) "It's the fucking government. Got to wash the phone books."
"Excuse me?" I said, obviously just not getting it.
"The cars of motel donkey boots," he clarified. "Fucking dog food!"
At this point I excused myself politely, by which I mean I fled three aisles away as quickly and unobtrusively as humanly possible. But this was not to be the last I heard of him.
"Motherfucking hot dogs!" I heard him yell to no one in particular as I stood in line for the self checkout with my suddenly unimportant-seeming purchase of a family sized bag of Hershey's Miniatures. "I'll fuck you up!"
He also seemed to be browsing the $5 DVDs in the impulse item area of the checkout, though, so I somewhat hoped he'd be lulled into peace by a felicitously-timed copy of the Mel Gibson/Helen Hunt classic "What Women Want."
It was not to be. Soon "I'll fuck you up!" became a repeated refrain between bouts of unintelligible mumbling. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought he was auditioning to replace Ramona on Real Housewives.
And as if to underscore the ridiculousness of the situation, the self checkout began reprimanding me for having an unauthorized item in the bagging area. An unfounded charge, I assure you.
But regardless, I got my receipt and got the hell out, just as the crack Walgreen's security team was approaching my new friend to inquire as to what, if anything, they might be able to do for him. My guess is that he was frustrated at being unable to locate the latest products in the Covergirl Queen Collection, but I could be way off base with this one.
