My Diseased Mind

Trapped

The lady in front of me at the Wal-Mart checkout line is middle-aged, morbidly obese, and riding a Mart Cart. She’s also leading a second cart, pack mule-style, with 10 packages of Assurance Underpads. I really don’t want to know what she’s soaking up with them. All I know for sure is that I will never use a Mart Cart. I stare at them, practicing my poker face. A look of serene nonchalance washes over my face. It’s a look that says, “No ma’am, I’m not the least bit horrified by what’s in your cart, nor have I been attempting to determine whether or not I can smell urine right now.” I send The Boy to the electronics section to get the Super Bowl score. He returns with the correct score, but with the teams reversed.

The man in front of the obese woman is buying a 12-pack of Keystone. He also asks for some Skoal, and the cashier is apparently baffled as to where his particular flavor is located in the tobacco area. I want to disembowel him with a broken Keystone bottle, only instead of breaking it on a table, I want to crack it over his skull. I’ve never understood why that wasn’t done in TV & movies. Both are classic moves, but they’re never utilized together. If I make a movie, they will be, and a new level of awesome will be created.

Meanwhile, the man waiting for the Skoal has noticed the Assurance Underpads. He looks decidedly nonplussed. I know that I would obliterate him at poker, and this briefly makes me feel better.

The cashier is slow. She stops between passes on the scanner to chat with the customers. It doesn’t help that she apparently knows the morbidly obese lady. I resolve that I will not chat with her, that I will stare coldly into space, thus giving the customers behind me a break.

When I finally reach the counter, the cashier decides that the woman behind me, who isn’t carrying much, should go ahead of me. I agree, because she has been through just as much hell as I, and after all, she is only carrying 2 things. She asks for cigarettes, sending the cashier off on another odyssey in the tobacco section. My poker face cracks for a moment, but then I’m back to serene nonchalance. When my turn arrives, I chat with the cashier, answering her questions about my purchases. I’m such a pussy.