Those of you who are regular readers of this blog already know that whenever I go shopping, something weird usually happens to me. It’s as if I have a shopping curse that follows me the minute I set foot in a store (the thought has crossed my mind that maybe my deceased husband has something to do with it in a beyond-the-grave effort to convince me to shop less).
Yesterday, I ventured out shopping for the first time in two weeks.
And at Ocean State Job Lot, I nearly caused an unexpected evacuation.
I was walking past a display of those long foam things kids use when swimming – I think they are called pool noodles – up near the store's front windows, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw two yellow jackets (the wasps, not the items of apparel) perched on top of them. Curious, I moved closer to get a better look…which was made possible only because of my recent cataract surgery. If it had been prior to the surgery, I wouldn’t even have been able to see the wasps...or the pool noodles...or the windows.
Behind the display, on the lower sill at the bottom of the window, was a whole gang of yellow jackets happily building a nest. I slowly backed away.
If there is one thing in life you never want to do, it’s disturb yellow jackets, even if you are smiling at them and telling them how pretty they are and what hard workers they are. They will try to kill you. It is their mission in life. They know their stingers are smooth, not barbed, so they won’t lose them and die like some other bees and wasps do when they sting. No, yellow jackets can sting you all day if they are in particularly grouchy or vengeful moods – which is just about always.
I browsed through the store and selected a few items, then brought them to one of the registers where the cashier, two employees and someone who looked like a manager-type were discussing business. I set my items on the counter.
When the cashier began to scan my items, I casually said, “Oh, I thought you might want to know there’s a nest of yellow jackets behind the display of pool noodles in the front window.”
Immediately, four sets of eyes that suddenly looked as big as owls’ eyes stared at me. One of the employees then broke the silence by gasping, “I’m allergic!” and rapidly disappeared out through the front door, where she stood on the sidewalk and kept brushing at her head with her hand.
The manager-type guy sighed and said to me, “Well, that explains a lot,” leading me to believe a yellow jacket or two might have introduced themselves to him in another area of the store and he’d wondered where they’d come from. He then went outside to investigate, wisely looking through the window at the little winged assassins rather than approaching them from the pool-noodle side, as I’d done. I saw him slowly shaking his head and frowning, as if to say, “So what the heck do I do now?”
I felt sorry for him. I mean, having a team of exterminators descend upon the store couldn’t be good for business. But then, neither was risking the life of some innocent customer selecting a pretty blue pool noodle for her grandson and getting attacked by a swarm of angry yellow jackets that already had claimed the noodle for themselves.
Either way, the manager was faced with a lose-lose situation.
When I left the store, I saw the allergic employee sitting in her car, which was parked next to mine. She was on her cell phone and still was swatting at her hair.
I had the feeling she was done working for the day…maybe even for the week.
From there, I headed over to Walmart’s optical department to pick up my new reading glasses.
They were ready, they fit perfectly and I could read the smallest print in the brochure on the counter. Simple. No problems there.
Or so I thought...
As I was leaving the store, I happened to glance down at my wrist, the one that’s still on the mend from being fractured. When I go shopping, I usually wear a wrist brace in case my shopping cart gets too heavy and my arm needs some extra support to push it.
There, dangling from one of the Velcro strips on my brace, was a beaded necklace type of chain to hang glasses from, still attached to its display card. I had no idea where it had come from or how it had attached itself to my wrist brace, but I knew I had to take it back to the optical department before I was arrested for shoplifting.
Luckily, the employee had a good sense of humor. It turned out the neck chain had been hanging on a rack near the register, and when I’d reached for the brochure to read to test my new glasses, the Velcro caught it and it hitched a ride with me, nearly making it to freedom.
I think I’m beginning to understand why so many people do all of their shopping online.
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Sally Breslin is
a native New Englander and an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has
written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is
the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to
science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net
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