Everywoman Val is Now a Felon (Allegedly)

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Let's face it...Val has one of those faces. Not the kind that launched a thousand ships. This is Missouri, by cracky! We're not in the ship-launching business.

Nope. Val has one of those faces that only a mother could love, and then even her not so much, recalling the comments made over Val's new driver's license photo.

Okay. So the kind of face Val has is one that is familiar to people. They think they know her. They think she works at whatever establishment she happens to be shopping in at the time. They even complain to the Walmart clerk that they know me, and that I am deliberately lying about who I am.

Sometimes, people even walk up beside her while she's boxing her groceries, and hand Val a wad of cash inside Save A Lot. They just think they know her.

That's not always a good thing.

Thursday, I went in Orb K to cash in a lottery ticket. The clerk who usually deals with me was walking around the store with a box, putting merchandise on the shelves. I went to the counter and waited. It's not like I had a pressing engagement.

The wait was much longer than one would expect in a convenience store. The lack of people was disturbing, like in The Langoliers. I kept glancing around to see if there were other workers or customers. Finally, a short older woman shaped like Humpty Dumpty came out of the area where Orb K has a drive-thru window. Her dark hair was combed back from her forehead, pulled back severely, and not in a flattering style. She wore a dark brown t-shirt with no collar, and a slogan written in tan across the front.

Brownie walked out of that drive-thru area carrying a clear plastic food container that might have held something such as a wrap. She put it in their sandwich case area. "I'll be there in a minute, Ma'am." Then went back to the drive-thru section and disappeared.

Still, I waited. My winner in my hand. A line of three or four people had formed behind me.

Brownie came back out, and stepped up to stand behind the counter. I slid my winning ticket across to her. But before I could say anything, Brownie said, "This one?" She looked over her shoulder. Then back at me. "Did you get gas yesterday?"

"No. I never get gas here."

"No? Okay. WRONG LADY."

A thinner, more put-together, offical-looking woman with stylish dark hair stepped out holding a clipboard. To take a peep at me, I guess. Then she disappeared back behind the drive-thru wall.

Seriously. They have cameras in those places. How many dirty black 2008 T-Hoes could be pumping gas every day, with a driver who looks like Val?

Let the record show that Val don't tug on Superman's cape. She don't spit into the wind. She don't pull the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger...and she sure as Not-Heaven doesn't get her gas at Orb K!

I am a lottery and soda kind of gal. If I was a Steve Miller Band song, my title might be
"The Diet-Coker."

A jackpot tryer, a heavy sigher, a Diet Coke buyer.
I ain't out to cheat no one.
Not a trucker, no cat-humper (sorry Puppy Jack!) nor a K gas pumper.
I buy my vices and I'm done.

If only the walkabout clerk could have come over to vouch for me! Anyhoo...Brownie didn't seem all that invested in calling the fuzz to haul me to the big house. She cashed my ticket and gave me my new selections and I was out of there.

Wait a minute! What if Brownie and that suspicious gal had the regular workers tied up in the back, and were about to run a scam on Orb K...