Tale from the slow lane

          We have a fully outfitted home here. You know – sheets, plates, pots, actual furniture to sit one. So why do I so often find myself at Home Goods?

          Or as I like to call it, Mecca.

          Okay, fine. Some of this is entertainment shopping, and it doesn’t help that the building extends to a T.J. Maxx, where we can flex our gathering genes left over from cavelady days.

          But there I was, in line with, among other things, the truly needed plastic box with drawer that would become my deli drawer in my stupid new fridge. Needed because otherwise cheeses, cold cuts, and bacon would just lie in a heap on the shelf like a small car crash.  

    

      Depending on the day (beware senior discount Mondays), it can get a bit busy there, but that day it was nuts. The check-out line was easily 30 or 40 deep, but I was damned if I was giving up my perfect find.

        

  In front of me was a young mother with a very cute but active and bored under-two year-old. In back of me was a woman in my age range in a sparkly top, wearing quite an assortment of gold. (Life in Florida tends to the sparkly around here.)

          Since the alternative was much squirming and bellowing, Young Mom lifted the toddler out of carriage and he immediately began to explore what was around us. Unfortunately, we were next to the lamp display, a good test of her reflexes. Next came pictures and mirrors, ditto.

          I finally assured her that I was happy to move her cart up when needed, a good thing since Noah’s (we all learned his name pretty quickly, along with the fact that they must have been Russian, what with all the “nyets”) explorations went further and further afield.

          Meanwhile, the sparkly woman in back of me must have lived on nearby mansion-filled Casey Key (where, by the way, Stephen King has a place) because she was telling the lady in back of her about her experiences with last year’s hurricanes. After the first bad storm, it had cost her $14,000 just to have the sand scooped out of her house.

(Validating yet again my complete disinterest in ever having the kind of money to own a place on the water – a target for every hurricane coming across the Gulf.)

          Fifteen minutes later, Noah was back in the cart and those of us in line had bonded so well we actually said goodbye before stepping up to our individual cashiers.