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Mother's Day


Don't think I didn't see you.

It was like this: two old folks come down my line, husband and wife. The wife leads, because this is The Store, and the men always hang back and do nothing, save for stare at other women. (They handle the "challenge" of running the credit card. Which I do for them.) I saw her unload your cart, and I saw her take care of smiling for you. You were the same as all the others, so maybe I didn't see you at first. But I think it was that lack of smile that betrayed you. You idiot, the smile keeps me pacified! It keeps the cloak up! It makes me think you've maybe got something ticking in that chest of yours! But now the deception was down, and I saw you.

Is that why you did it? Because you thought I was disrespecting you, with this unspoken stream of thoughts? Then you should not have done what you did.

"Why don't you go ahead and bag?"

A fair recommendation. She asked nicely. She was a very nice woman.

"Mrnreh!"

I think that's how you spell the sound you made. There was no chance for invisibility now. I knew things were going to get ugly, because you were ugly.

Were? Are.

"Oh, come on! It's Mother's Day!"

"Load the damn belt and get down there."

I put stress on the words, but you sucked those words back, you coward. You whispered them. And a whisper in The Store is plausible deniability. And you watched, with furrowed brow, like this hurt you somehow, as she unloaded the cart. (Until she brought the cart closer to chat with me. I helped her out with the stuff I could reach.)

She waited again, this time with a silent assertiveness, for you to go down and just put your $21.34 worth of items in a goddamn paper bag. But again, louder this time:

"MRNREH!!"

Are you a baby? Maybe this was some Benjamin Button shit.

Still not forgiving you, though.

And when that bill for $21.34 came up, you thrust your crumpled $100 in my face, again, like this was some sort of burden to you. Sucked out the last of my twenties like pudding through a straw. By the time you inched down to the end of the line, she was already done. (I saw how quick you walked up to the line. If you'd stepped on the gas a little bit, my lad, you could have gotten the second half for her.)

A glance to my right, and there was already someone down the line. A fresh-faced young man who could summon the solitary calorie needed for a smile.

I called to your wife, old crustbucket, with all the meaning a dead mummy can make, that she should have a Happy Mother's Day.

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