Broken Eggs and Loose Change

My favorite moments are the little, lost, perhaps forgotten happenings in the course of a day when a grocery store isle or a cafe line becomes the place of non sequitur conversation, which are the angel wings that lift us up above the fundament of  boring-painful everyday life.

Such was the way it was in Trader's Joe's today as I waited to check out my bag of Chile-dried Mangoes, Chocolate-Drop Butter Cookies, Pistachio Cookies, Orange-dried Cranberries, and some other snacks I bought to fortify mind and body in my quest for Coffee Dates. It is a hungry and thirsty business.

I had the choice between two lines. One was clearly 10 items or less, and the other was of the any-quantity goes variety. The 10 item or less line, had four customers. The regular line had one. I chose the regular line. The woman who was supposedly in line, was not. She had drifted a few feet away, and had her back turned to me. In the check-out space, there were no groceries. I was home-free. But as I put my groceries down, the check-out clerk informed me that she-with-her-back-turned was before me.

"Well, it looked like she was finished," I said. The clerk smiled. Hell, I was in no hurry. As a matter of fact, I felt so spaced out from all the pain-killers I was taking for my sprained left knee that I could have watched seagulls fight over french fries all day, and would have thought it was the Second Coming of Christ.

I eyed her groceries as the clerk pulled them out from behind the counter. That's why I hadn't seen them - they were so well hidden. There were a lot of groceries. The clerk looked at them, then looked at me. "That's a ten item or less line," she nodded her head in the direction of the line to her right.

"No," I said, "if there's one thing I've learned in life.... Never change lines in a grocery stores. If you do, it's a sure guarantee that you'll end up going slower in that line than the one you left."

My line-mate in front immediately chimed in. "Ya know, that's true..."

"Of course, it's true," I said. "Of all the things that I've learned in my life, that's got to be one of the truest... I also know that if you're stranded in the Wilderness you should stay in the same place, and you're more sure to get found."

Don't ask me what happened, but from there on, the conversation took off. We talked about tranquilizers, bad love affairs, sex at Noon-time... She asked me if I worked in advertising writing copy. I said I'd thought about it at one time, but would never take myself seriously if I did. I probably should have - I'd have made a lot more money.

As her items were getting checked out and the conversation got weirder and weirder and people started taking notice, the check out clerk noticed that there was one broken egg in her dozen. She rang the bell to summon a clerk. He came, and took away the defective box.

"Always guard your eggs, " I said to my line-mate, Sue. We laughed. Soon after, the clerk returned  with a new box of eggs. It was packed up, and Sue went on her way.

A short time later, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Sue. She leaned over to me and said, "Broken Eggs and Loose Change - that should be your next blog...."

Well, Sue, thank you. Here it is....