Its a busy day in the local Food Mart. Lines at least five minutes long if you have more than 10 items. The chorus of barcode scanners beeping away, one every second or two, some faint, some louder.. A continuous wash of sound, a crying child down the way who's mom said no to a Snickers or Hershey bar, the mumblings of an old lady as she digs through her purse for a coupon or for that last thirteen cents, a light chatter between two teenage girls about their not present "friend".
Then there's this guy carrying his one can of Campbells chicken noodle soup. Tossing it back and forth here and there while glancing behind and off to the right to a rather embarrassed looking middle age woman with a young boy that's lost in a comic book. Hand signals.. Up, down, slight nod.. A barely perceivable shake of the head followed by the glance to the Soaps digest with a cough to conceal the true meanings of these communications.
But alas his plans are all for naught... Whether its the number of items in the carts in queue, the lady in full 60's regalia with several large bags of organic fresh fruit that need to be weighed, or if he simply got a funny feeling on which horse to bet on based on a "Hello My Name Is" plastic nametag... We'll never know.
He ditches back to his now red faced wife. I lose him, busy adding to the light roar of noise, being that guy talking on his cell about plans for the evening with some associates.. But as I drop the thirteen cents change and receipt into one of my assorted bags I got a slight bit of satisfaction passing by our friend restlessly fidgeting as a manager and a checkout attendant dig through keychains full of color coded keys to fix a register problem that only the designer of the system had even heard of.
I wave.