Anticipation and Annoyance

Each year, after a particular medical appointment, I treat myself with some shopping therapy afterwards. Like it was all meant to be, the store sits practically next door to the medical offices.

          So there I was on Friday, my internal body matters dealt with; now it was time to take care of the outer woman. Mask on, I entered the store, my pulse quickening a bit. This was my first time in a clothing store since March. I wouldn’t have to guess about something from a picture on line, then wait a week or more for it to arrive! I could touch it and feel it in person. Shorts, my daily uniform since the beginning of June, were nowhere to be seen. I did, however,find tee shirts, the other half of my uniform. I must have thought a time machine had whisked me back a year because I sailed off, unthinking, to the dressing rooms.

         No dice. But then I asked myself - did I really want to go into a dressing room and try on clothes?

          Driving home, I pulled up to a stop sign in the center of our small town. In front of me was an El Camino, a sort of Chevy half-n-half from the late 1960s, car in front, and a low truck bed in back, which on this vehicle in front of me was retrofitted with a lid over the bed. In it sat two guys being all cool with shaved heads and sunglasses, growing restive at the long wait to turn. 

          While I sat there behind them, I had plenty of time to see into the back since the tailgate was down. Inside were two cases of Gatorade and a six-pack of Red Bull cans, all of which seemed precipitously close to the edge. I mused that they must have secured them in some way I couldn’t see. Who would just sling things in, leaving the back open?

          They peeled out with a dramatic left turn, and yes, everything flew out of the back onto the road as they revved off into the distance, oblivious they’d lost their cargo.

          Because I am a flawed person, I felt the petty satisfaction of being right, but it was replaced by annoyance at the cans and plastic bottles now all over the road, littering our tidy center of town.