The Feet of God

50 - I SHOWED ‘EM THE MONEY

The store cop took me by the arm and escorted me toward the front.  We stopped by a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY and he asked, “You wouldn’t happen to have any money on you now, would you?”

“Sure do, officer.”  I reached into the pocket of my pastel stretch pants and hauled out a wad of bills.

He turned to the zit-faced boy in a smock following us.  “Now ya see, Walter, all ya have to do is ask the nice customer if he’s intending to pay for the items he’s stashed away, and nine times out of ten, he’ll do the right thing and pay up.”

I stepped back and opened my eyes wide.  “Well sure I was gonna pay for all this stuff.  I just needed to see if it would fit into the backpack, like I told you, that’s all.”

The store cop smiled, “I knew it all along.  So we won’t need to take you into the back room and go through your pants or under your shirt, now, will we?”

“Not at all,” I assured him.  “Here, take a look.”  I pulled out the front of my stretch pants giving the store cop a clear view that there was nothing down there.

He quickly turned away.  “That’s fine, we believe you, you can close that up now and we’ll go over here to this nice lady and you can pay for your purchases and get the hell out.”

“But I didn’t get my toothbrush yet.  I was gonna buy a toothbrush and toothpaste for the road.”

“Walter, go get the nice man a toothbrush and some toothpaste, and while you’re back there, get him one of those body spray things for men.”  He smiled at me again.  “Just to keep it fresh when you’re on your way.”

While I stood alongside the cart, the store cop unloaded my things for a lovely young woman named Wanda to ring-up.  He pulled the pants and shirt out of the backpack and dug through each pocket to make sure he didn’t miss anything.  Walter returned with Mal-Mart brand toothpaste, a packet of two-for-one toothbrushes and an econo-size can of spray for men called Midnight Rambler.

“Oh, you don’t need to put that stuff in bags, I’ll just put it in the pack,” I told Wanda.

The store cop cut in, “Just bag it, Wanda, and give us a total.”

She rolled her eyes and kept stuffing my goods into plastic bags.  “That’ll be $157.38.”

“Can I see that money again, sir?” the store cop asked.  He took my cash fortune and peeled off eight $20 bills.  Apparently that completed my purchase at Mal-Mart.

I smiled at Walter and Wanda and the store cop.  “Would it be possible for me to change into a set of these new duds in one of them rooms over in the MENSWEAR?”

The store cop picked up the four big plastic bags and firmly took my arm and quick-stepped me to the exit.  “We think your shopping experience with us has reached its conclusion for today, and it’s time to be on your way, sir.  We appreciate your business and hope you’ll come back to Mal-Mart for all your shopping needs.  Remember, if you can’t find it at Mal-Mart, it’s probably not worth having.”  And with that I found myself ushered outside.  It was already cold and dark, and I had my hands full.

Surprisingly, this qualified as one of my better experiences as a customer.  Everyone was very attentive to me, to say the least, and no outside law enforcement was required to complete my shopping transaction.  My immediate concern was to find a discrete place to change my clothes, so I looked around for the most shadowy corner of the parking lot and headed out that way.

This was the good part, almost like Christmas, or at least like the commercials I’ve seen about Christmas.  I started ripping open packets of socks and underwear and pealed off all my lady garments.  I emptied one plastic bag so’s I’d have somewhere dry to stand on in my new socks while I pulled tags off my new pants and slipped them on.  Then I pulled on my hiking boots and let the plastic bag blow away.  In the darkness I went over every inch of my shirt searching for pins but only found a couple’a pieces of plastic around the neck.  Finally I tore the tags off my denim jacket, and I was dressed like a real man.

I spent a few more minutes putting the extra clothes into my pack and stuffed the women’s clothes into one of the remaining plastic bags and swung it over my head a few times and let it fly over the chain-link fence just beyond the edge of the parking lot.

Finally I stuffed the last plastic bag with my leftover chilidog into the top of my pack, and, just to give my new outfit a new smell, topped everything off with a spritz of Midnight Rambler.

Everything was neatly stowed away and I was ready to hit the road again, when I noticed some lights ahead…and a slow-moving vehicle was headed straight my way.

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