Hang on! No need to form a posse to avenge fair damsel Val. Don't be so hasty. Backroads is not a hotbed of crime. We may find a headless body in the occasional septic tank, but there hasn't been an armed robbery for a couple of years, and that was on the parking lot of Country Mart at closing time.
This was at 2:30 in the afternoon, INSIDE the Gas Station Chicken Store. I'd just stepped through the door. Only one customer was inside, paying Rainbow Feather at the counter. She was leaving, so I squeezed by her to go down the aisle to the soda fountain. Usually I go down the middle aisle and curve around the back. With no other customers to nudge past, I used the most direct route.
I was halfway to the dispenser of my magical elixir when I heard her.
"Oh, here's a lucky penny! I'm going to pick that up to scratch with."
OH, THE COINMANITY!
I turned to see a medium-sized old-lady rumpus waving in the air as she plucked that penny from the linoleum in front of the men's restroom. NOOOO!!! I'm not sure I could have taken her in a tussle. I'm not very stable on my bone-to-bone knees, and she looked fairly sturdy. I guess that penny was meant for HER... but I wanted it so bad I could taste it. And it tasted like Diet Coke, about an ounce of which I swilled from my full cup before putting the lid on the other 43 oz.
No need to shed a tear for Val. There was actually a happy ending. Which you won't hear about until Saturday.
God bless that woman. I am sure you could take her out.
ReplyDeleteIf I backed her into a corner, and threw my ample rumpus around, she would be in a world of hurt!
DeleteHad I been with you, I am pretty sure I could have talked her out it. If that failed, the two of us could have taken her. It is all about determination, or is it intimidation?
ReplyDeleteYou could not only have talked her out of it, but she might have dug into her change purse and given us MORE!
DeleteThat's just plain bad luck. If you had made your usual way around, would you have spotted that penny before she did?
ReplyDeleteNo, it was up against the front wall as I walked in. The minute I stepped through the door, it was behind me. So I wouldn't have seen it until I was at the register, facing the front of the store, no matter which route I took. The shelves block the view of that area from the soda fountain.
DeleteThe penny might have tasted like the men's restroom floor.
ReplyDeleteI haven't tasted a floor penny yet! But Hick ate a grilled hot dog he dropped on the porch where my little Jack gets his treats... and sometimes pees on the cedar siding.
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