I spent a great deal of time yesterday in a suburb of a distant city. While there, I was given a list and sent to the store for a few things; so I drove to a large supermarket around the corner.
As I pulled my truck into a parking space about 1/4 mile from the store (who is it that always parks in all the spots closest to the store....and what time do they get there to get those spots???), I noticed an ambulance with its lights flashing just as it was driving away from the front of the store. It turned out onto the street with its siren blowing and sped off.
Hmmm. I thought. Wonder what happened to the somebody they were taking away?
I walked into the store and nothing at all seemed unusual. Back home in my neighborhood if an ambulance had just pulled away with lights and sirens, EVERYBODY would be all consumed with what had just happened----where they'd been standing when they first noticed what was going on, what the person said, who dialed 9-1-1.....all the juicy tidbits relived and retold as if to somehow unravel a mystery or simply to just come to terms that something bad had just happened to someone they probably knew.
It reminded me of the time we country cousins were visiting my city grandma at her apartment which was located next to a hospital. My city cousin was there, and he chided us for being so stupid as to drop what we were doing to notice that an ambulance had just arrived----again----with another somebody. He said, "She lives next to a hospital, you guys. Ambulances come here." Well yeah, so he was right.....but.....whoever was getting a ride to our local hospital back home could well be someone we knew.
Well, so.....someone just left in an ambulance. I'd probably never know who or why, so I turned my attention back to shopping. I'm not a bumkin. I've been shopping lots of times. I can generally find my way around stores. Even if they don't place things where *I* would put them, I can read the signs in the aisles and take pretty good guesses.
I don't know if I simply, in my haste, totally skipped the baby aisle the 14 times (well, maybe not 14...) I circled the store or if that store just didn't carry baby stuff. I was growing sort of frustrated. All's I wanted was a box of baby wipes and I absolutely couldn't even find the diaper aisle in this whole great big store. I looked around for a store worker to ask, but seemingly they were all otherwise engaged and I didn't want to bother anyone. I almost asked the lady who I kept meeting up with every so often. Her stance told me she wasn't finding what she was looking for either. I saw her different times and in different places with her index finger on her chin and her eyes fixed up at the same aisle signs hanging from the ceiling that I kept studying.
I can do this, I told myself. I can find the baby aisle.
I couldn't. I gave up. I ended up checking myself out. The computer told me everything I needed to know about that. I fed my money into the slot that served in stead of a checkout lady's hand and it spit out my change. I think I noticed the screen blink, "Thank you for shopping at Big Grocery Store". I supposed that was the replacement for a real live clerk's friendly smile.
In my mind, I could hear Alan Jackson's song, "The Little Man". I don't know if I can post those lyrics in a blogpost, but google them. It's a hauntingly good song about the things we've lost by the things we've gained in American towns.
For the time being, I can still go to local family owned and operated businesses where I live. The clerks all know me and I know them.
And there are few enough calamities around here that warrant ambulance trips that I can still wonder what happened.....
~Colleen
