September 5, 2011. Dear Diary: I saw some thing really odd today, at a discount store in Poway, while I was standing in line waiting for my stuff to be rung up by a cashier.
Two lanes over, there was this man—and oh! Diary! what a man!—also waiting, a package of cigarettes in his hand. He was jammed in between several in front of him, and several in back of him, with shopping carts loaded to the brim.
A big black woman right in front of him, her cart loaded, turned and said something to him. He just smiled. Then she started yelling at him. He just smiled. Then the big black woman started talking with the obese white woman behind the man, her self with a large cart filled to overflowing. The two women exchanged comments, and then the woman behind the man started pummeling him with a super sized bag of potato chips.
He looked startled, but didn’t do or say anything.
Then other customers, waiting to be rung up in that same line, began staring at the man with the package of cigarettes, some of them screaming invectives at him. Someone threw an apple at him, and somebody else a six-pack of macaroni-and-cheese. Everybody was yelling and screaming at him, throwing things at him.
He looked startled, but kept his peace.
Then the cashier lifted the receiver by her register, requesting, “STORE SECURITY, PLEASE, CASHIER LANE 5, CUSTOMER MISBEHAVING.â€
Then everybody in all the other cashier lanes paid attention, watching as two big burly guys came up to the man, tackling him. He looked greatly surprised, and probably could have knocked both their heads together, but instead he just went limp and they hauled him away.
“What was that all about?†somebody in my own lane asked.
“The guy had one item,†someone in the next lane explained; “just one single item, and he was in between all these full carts. Since he had just one item, the customers in front of him suggested it’d be okay if he went before them, but no…..he said he could wait his turn.
“He said he could wait his turn.
“Now, is that weird, or what? It sounds like a terrorist to me, he could wait his turn.â€
By the time I had gotten through my own line and was outside, walking towards the car, I saw him again—and oh! Diary! what a man!—walking towards his own car. He was tall, thin, with a full head of dark brown hair (although the hair seemed too long), his face of the Welsh sort, the package of cigarettes in his hand. He acted s-o-o-o-o totally laid back and mellow, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
His car had Nebraska license plates.
I’m going to have to google “Nebraska,†to see where it’s at; probably somewhere between Florida and Georgia, wherever they’re at.