The Day Val Sent a Man To Prison

Saturday afternoon found me at the Liquor Store to buy scratchers. I had to park nose-in to a car in one of the six parking spaces down front. That meant the drive-thru line could impede my exit, being lined up behind T-Hoe's rear when I needed to back up to pull around the car in front of me. In fact, as I got out, a lady in that line was backing up. She asked, "Are you going in or out?"

"IN! I mean, in the store. You're not in my way."

So that lady pulled back into the line, and I hobbled across the lot and up the hill into the Liquor Store. The clerk was the young guy who is perfectly polite, though disinterested. He was wearing a gray hoodie over his noggin, and might have indulged in a certain (legal) vape, or a consumable, before starting his shift.

As I was telling him which scratchers I wanted, a girl came into the shop. She was flitting around by the soda fountain, and talking to Clerk. Perhaps she worked there, perhaps she was just a friend. His attention was on their conversation. I didn't really listen closely. I was reminding him of the number on the scratchers that I wanted.

"Is he OUR age? Tell him to get his [rumpus] in here!"

"No. He's old."

I gathered that there was somebody sitting in a car on the lot, not doing anything. I didn't know why this would be a problem. Unless maybe they were worried about a robbery. You never know when you work in a convenience store.

Anyhoo... I got my scratchers and left. I was a bit perturbed to see a black sedan parked in a non-parking spot! It was next to the space I would have parked in, if there hadn't already been a car there. I was grousing to myself as I went behind it, "I don't really think that's a parking space." When I was in front of T-Hoe, the driver of that sedan said,

"Could you help me?"

Of course Val is a sucker for those in need. I turned and went to the side of that sedan. Inside was a 40-something guy of another race, holding up his phone that was tethered to a power cord.

"Oh! I can't help you with anything that has to do with a phone! But if you tell me what you're looking for, I might know."

The phone screen looked like it had a road and destination on it, like the Garmin we use in A-Cad going to Oklahoma.

"Okay. Do you know how I can get to the Eastern Missouri--"

"Oh! Yes! Just get back on this road, and go through all three lights, and in 2 or 3 miles you'll see it. It's HUGE! You can't miss it. It's on the left. You might have trouble getting out of this lot because of the traffic. Sometimes I make a right, then a left at Casey's, to go around the block."

"I'm okay with waiting. I don't want to get lost! I'll just take this road like you said."

"Yeah. I live out that way. I pass it every day. You can't miss it."

That was my good deed for the day. I don't know why the kids inside were so concerned about that guy sitting on the lot. He was just trying to figure out where his phone was sending him.

You'd think I would have been rewarded by The Universe, but NO! I didn't have a single winner from the Liquor Store. The Pony said it was because my good deed came AFTER I bought my tickets.

Then I told The Pony I felt bad, because I immediately jumped to the conclusion that the guy was trying to find the prison.

"Does that make me a racist? What if he was looking for a different business called Eastern Missouri something-or-other? And I sent him straight to the prison!"

"Mom. I deliver the mail. I guarantee there is nothing else in town with that name."

Well. That's a relief.