At the strip mall
It was fun. I was on a quest for jeans, maybe a shirt. It’s a relatively new strip mall and is killing the old, indoor type mall across the interstate. Target moved to it, leaving a vast empty space in its wake. A few others did as well.
So I’m at the strip mall, driving, looking at all the stores. Many things popped into my head, things like “What are Classic Nails?” Momentarily, I imagined old, rusty nails, nails Mozart might have hammered on. Fucking classic, man. I was told by the woman in the passenger seat that the sign refered to FINGER nails and TOE nails, not THOSE kinds of nails.
As per usual, I stood corrected.
There was a place called EyeMart, which I assumed was just like WalMart, only with eyes. I nudged the gas a little harder. Creepy.
There was a Men’s Warehouse, likely stacked to the rafters with testicles, testosterone, golf clubs, bourbon, tits, and the crumpled sports sections of newspapers. Also, there was the Man Salon with many gorgeous metrosexuals milling about in the front. They were all gazing into mirrors and complimenting each other on how fantastic they smelled. I waved at them but they ignored me, snickering at my caveman beard and uncouth mountain man ways.
Finally, I came to the object of my desire: Gordman’s. I parked and went inside, where I found weirdness galore. It was a young person’s store and young persons wandered about it, dazed like zombies as they dicked around with their mobile devices. I found a pair of Levi’s and tried them on. They fit, so I decided to buy them. I looked for shirts, but they were all stupid.
Having nothing better to do, I wandered the aisles as undazed and alert as a sniper on a rooftop. There were many oddities. Too many, in fact, to mention them all. There was a $25 container to put your butter in. Crazy. Butter should not have a nicer apartment than its owner.
I came to a display of fake rocks and knew I had hit the jackpot. I cursed myself for leaving my cellphone at home, for I wanted to preserve the moment in pictures to show my grandkids.
“Yep,” I’d tell them, “before the riots and the coups, when all people, not just Democrats, had electricity, there were fake rocks.”
“Fake rocks, Grampa Mike?” they’d say in wonderment, and I would proceed to tell them how one Tuesday I came upon a pile of them for sale in a store. Of course, I would have to explain to them what a store was, but I’m sure they’d appreciate my effort.
I spent nearly 20 minutes at the fake rock display, rubbing my eyes and pinching myself. So long, in fact, the woman who rode to the strip mall with me in the passenger seat grew restless, sighed loudly, and announced “I’m going to look at the bras.”
“I’ll be right here,” I told her.
