Wednesday, April 15, 2020

The Unbearable Likeness of Queueing

DANGER! Danger in the convenience store line! OOOGAH! OOOGAH! Heed the warning siren! Listen for directions. Val has taken one for the stay-at-home team to bring you this vital message.

STAY VIGILANT! KNOW YOUR SURROUNDINGS!

I am not one to scream from the rooftops that the Apopadopalyspe (Hick's term) is here. I stay home because it's recommended and decreed. Not because I'm worried that masked and gloved employees of the county health center will descend upon me with a three-foot-long nasal swab if someone narcs on me. Not because I'm worried that I will inhale a roving aerosolized virus when a waft of the dead-mouse-smelling post office's air enters my snout. No. I'm all about obeying the new unenforced rules, but if I'm out to mail my Sprint bill, I'll stop for a 44 oz Diet Coke and scratchers.

Monday, my first outing since groceries four days ago, I stopped in Orb K for scratchers. They have a plexiglas barrier now in front of the cashiers. Yellow tape marks on the floor six feet apart for line-waiters. I was WAY back. Fifth in line. If many more people came in after me, they'd be dangling their rumpuses over the wake-up bumps of the Hwy 67 side lines.

Of course there were some rowdy scoffrule ruffians ahead of me. FOUR people, all dressed in khaki pants and brown shirts. I have no idea what company they worked for. They weren't the local prison guard uniforms. It's unlikely 3 men and 1 woman would coordinate their clothes like that. One guy was in line with a sandwich from the cold display. The others roamed around it, and to the line, and back to the food. I figured they were going to be line-cutters. To which I'd say nothing, but silently fume, and give them a scathing write-up on my blog. But no. They decided not to get anything, or were clever shoplifters, because they all went out, the gal complaining that the van was locked, and they needed the key from the line-waiter.

The line moved up. Once. Twice.

WHERE ARE THE STEPS TO THE ROOF SO I CAN SHOUT "APOPADOPALYSPE?"


That's not an artist's rendering. That's not computer-generated. Not a mere likeness. It's a PHOTOGRAPH of bubbly spit on the floor of Orb K!

What kind of sub-human do you have to be to SPIT on the floor INSIDE a business?

I avoided it like the possible plague! I'm pretty sure this sputum needed to be roped off with yellow caution tape, by a hazmat team wearing respirators and full-body suits. Then the business closed down for six weeks for steam-cleaning and disinfecting and dismantling and shipping in a hermetically-sealed railroad car to be buried indefinitely in a salt formation under New Mexico.

But...being Val, I just bought my scratchers and left.

Not a winner in the bunch.

If you get out for grocery shopping, people, watch the floor. And not for pennies.

8 comments:

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    1. Don't I know it! Retired teacher here! Can't remember the number of used bandaids I picked up off the floor, or fingernails (hopefully not TOENAILS) scooped out of desks.

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  2. Ditto "Out My Window"

    Hick speaks Oppish? Almost?

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    1. Hick HEARS Oppish, at a high volume. Not sure if he actually speaks it!

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  3. I always watch where I'm stepping, there's far too many spitters and gum droppers around my city. Just last week I was approaching a bus stop on my daily walk and spied an Australian-from-another-country cough and spit right there on the ground! luckily there were no other people waiting in line for the bus. I did a quick U-turn and went back the way I'd come. Spitting is disgusting! Use a tissue then throw it in the nearest bin!

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    1. At least that was OUTSIDE! Kids used to spit on the gym floor. Where other kids could fall down and scrape their knee. The spit itself might have made them fall! They'd do it to step in and get traction with their shoes. Kind of ironic...traction/slipping.

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  4. Ah, our guys may have been cut from the same cloth when it comes to self expression. I no longer correct him. Especially since he said I would be okay to be alone with on an isolated island. I don't want to irritate him in case he's planning our great escape.

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    1. Well, if Hick said he'd be okay alone on an isolated island, I'd be pretty sure he was trying to "accidentally" kill me...

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