Last week wasn’t a good week for me to blog. I had a crazy work schedule, freelance schedule, no wife-time schedule, and generally a poor attitude about anything having to do with the word “schedule”. I wrote a blog entitled “I’m a fucking whore” and then decided it seemed entirely too “woe is me” and chalked it up to lack of sleep.
I also had a topic for a blog on Friday (that would have been entitled “the game”) that I ran by the wife and for the first time she said, “You can’t blog about that! I’ve got family that reads your blog!”
I took a nugget of pride in that fact—that I had stumbled across where the taboo line was, although it left me a bit topicless.
So instead of writing, I proceeded out the door to go pay our Ameren bill. Jenn had told me that it had to be paid that day, so I assumed that was going online, making a phone call, or god forbid, actually writing a check. Come to find out, I actually had to go to Schnuck’s (the local grocery store) to avoid the $3 late charge.
Living in the city, there is no shortage of Schnuck’s around, and so years ago I started identifying them by their general level of hoopdy-ness.
Now, the urban dictionary refers to hoopdy as an exclamation meaning, "kick ass!" but as an un-hip white boy, I’ve always used is as a derogatory term in reference to people that would say things like “Check out these hoopdy rims I put on my Omni!”
I know it all must seem terribly confusing, but the general rule: The higher the level of hoopdy, the more distasteful it is.
There was “Hoopdy Schnucks”, “Super Hoopdy”, and “The Sticky Hoop”. (In fairness, there is one over in Clayton that’s called simply, “The Fancy Schnucks.”)
I knew there was one around the corner from our home, on Grand, but Jenn and I hadn’t ever been in there, so it had an uncharted hoopdy level. Since it was close, and I was only paying a bill, I figured I might as well check it out.
As I approached the counter, I was impressed at the level of hoopdy-ness that had been achieved before even reaching the food area, and dubbed it “Stanky Hoop”.
I proceeded to pay my bill, which cost me an extra buck fifty for processing (remember, this is to avoid the $3 late fee, so I’m still ahead) and took about ten minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.
As I’m waiting, I watched people walk in and out of the door on the video surveillance that they have behind the counter. One gentleman caught my eye in particular and caused me to turn around.
To say he was black may be misleading. He was ashen. His bottom lip, which was larger than average, hung down, dry and flaky, like it hadn’t been touched by moisture in countless days. Even when he smiled, his lip still hung down, showing nothing but bottom teeth. When he spoke, he showed a gapping hole next to a gold tooth.
His hair was patchy like someone that went through chemotherapy but didn’t shave their head. He had a really nice Nikey shirt,(although it clearly had been worn a few days), matching “swoosh” pants, and a thick gold necklace.
His footwear was what really caught my attention though. He was wearing pink, fluffy, women’s slippers. They were somewhat faded and looked like he had walked through gray soot.
As I stood there staring at his slippers, I saw drips liquid hit the floor. Looking up, I noticed, (oddly enough for the first time) that he had a Walmart bag in his hand that was about the size of a basketball. It was dripping something a slightly darker shade of pink then his slippers.
“DON !” the man bellowed from out of the blue. “ DON ! Don! Don! Don! DON !!” The only man working behind the counter finally looked over at him, pointed at his name tag and said, “Are you hollering for me? My name is Dan, not Don.” The ashen man’s only response was a big gap and gold smile like he had just made a new friend.
“Sir…” Dan said, “You’re just going to have to wait your turn like everybody else.”
The woman next to the ashen man turn to Dan with a little head bobble and said “Ummm… no. You best help this man.” Then quickly pulled a tissue from her purse and covered her face with it. I figured out why about two seconds later when the wave of smell hit me.
Oh. Dear. God.
This was a mighty mighty stench. And as he raised the bag up, not only did the smell get worse but there was a slight squishy sound. Then he gave it a little shake to a far more audible squish.
“
“What?” Dan said.
“In da bag.
Sweet Jesus… he talks like Yoda on crack.
“Yeah… ok…” Dan replied. It was pretty clear he was thinking over how he just doesn’t get paid enough for days like today and suddenly, as funny as this all seemed to me, I felt really bad for Dan.
“Here!” The ashen man came lumbering forward, sticking the bag out in front of him with pride and spraying the crowd in line with reeking, spoiled, turkey juice like it was a punctured water balloon.
“I don’t want it! What would I possibly do with that?!” Dan said, exacerbated.
“Spoiled turkey. I don’t know why, but it’s a spoiled. Spoiled like meat, but it’s turkey.”
“I tell you what… you take that back to the meat department and I’ll have them exchange it for you.”
“The turkey?”
“Yeah… the turkey. Just take it on back.”
Hearing Dan on the phone to the meat department, explaining why a guy with a spoiled turkey in a Walmart bag was coming back to see him, was almost as entertaining as watching the ashen man waddle away with the trail of turkey juice dripping behind.
1 comment:
Mmmmm....turkey.
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