Confessions of a Serial Swooper

Lately, I don’t often blog twice a week let alone twice in a day but I just had an experience with Little Brother that needed to be written down.  So, here you go.

As I’ve mentioned before (ad nauseam), we live in a small town.  Well, technically it’s not that small as far as number of people (roughly 20,000) but it’s definitely very small as far as square mileage (it’s 19 sq miles, 15 sq miles of which is water).  So, there about 5,000 of us per square mile.   Packed.  Like lemmings.

Lucky seaside lemmings, but lemmings nonetheless.

Anyway.  Husband and I, although we’ve lived other places and returned, have called this town home for somewhere between six and seven years.  We’re newbies.  It’s a town where people grow up, raise a family, send their kids to college and then roughly four to ten years later, the kids return.  To raise their own families.  It’s that kind of place.

Having grown up in a town where everyone literally knew everyone else, I like that small town feeling.  I like that I recognize people at the bank.  At the post office.  At soccer games.

At the grocery store.

See, there’s this grocery store.  And, I almost hesitate to call it a grocery store because it’s very small.  It’s not a chain.  It has four rows and is owned by a very nice older couple who make it a point to know their customers by name.  Our house is less than 1/2 mile from said store and I’m pretty sure that our home’s location near the Community Store had more to do with our purchase decision than its proximity to the giant playground on the other side of our back fence.  “Forget the kids, honey, we’ve got steak tips and Smirnoff just down the street.”

It’s the kind of store where the guy who stocks the shelves greets my boys with big smiles and asks Big Brother how kindergarten is going.  It’s the kind of store where, if you forget your wallet, they’ll let you leave your phone number, take the groceries and come back “when you can.”

It’s the kind of store where, when the owner’s having a cigarette outside, you stop and chat.  Even though you detest cigarette smoke.  And you wonder what Little Brother is thinking as the older man puffs away, asking about the Luke Skywalker toy clutched in a tiny hand.

We chat.  We laugh.  We enter the store.

We have five items to get.  It’s a quiet time at the store.  Ten or so customers mill around the small aisles.

Salad.

Pancake Mix.

Rice.

And, there’s the owner again.  He’s dusting shelves.  Little Brother approaches him to, again, proudly show his toy.

The kind owner shows Little Brother his feather duster.

“Did you lose something, little guy?  Because I think I found your tail!”

“No.”  Little Brother laughs.  “That’s not my tail!”

“Are you sure?  Are you sure you’ve still got your tail? I think this might be your tail.”

Laughing a little louder now.  “No, no!  I don’t have a tail!”

Nearby shoppers giggle over aisles.

“You don’t?!  No tail?!”

Little Brother is hysterical.  Laughing very hard.   Must.  Make.  Him.  Understand.

Loudly.

“NO!”  Belly laughing, yet perfectly well-spoken.  “I DON’T HAVE A TAIL!  I HAVE A PENIS!”

_____

And that, my friends, will be the last time I tell a story about the Community Store for quite some time.

Good lord.