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Polar bear with carrot

Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Singed at the Dollar Store

People visit this blog for a variety of reasons. Some come for the music, or the foodie writing, some come for the birds. Those with a literary bent might arrive for the prose and rare witticisms, others to troll those very same words. I have readers of all ages, faiths and political persuasions, across the ideological spectrum. Some super smart, some raving idiots, viva la difference.

I really hand it to those people that loathe my politics and yet still return for a read, many are good friends who tell me that they just skip over the political material. Good for you, there is plenty of that stuff everywhere and the powers that be on both sides have figured out that if they can keep us constantly angered and triggered they will make themselves a lot of money.

But I diverge. One thing I am sure very few of you come for is puerile, locker room vulgarisms. Many of you have a conniption if I take the * out of F*ck. But the blog occasionally sinks below the Maginot line for prurient discourse and unfortunately, today shall be just such a day when I must indulge my more juvenile proclivities.

Because I had something remarkable happen near me at the Dollar Store yesterday and I really need to share and get it off my chest. I am creating an ink stamp and I needed a particular type of chisel tip marker (which they didn't have.) I like to go to Dollar Store for pens because they cost about forty cents a pen in a threepack and I am really cheap. I use a razor blade for about a month, or until it starts tearing off the flesh on my face I am so cheap, but that is another story for another day.

Anyway I walk into the store and I notice a woman, not too much older than me, in the section to the left of the door that usually has seasonal decorations, like Christmas and Halloween stuff. She had long, wavy, silver hair and was wearing the clothing of a hausfrau who had long since stopped giving a shit.

I am not sure why but our eyes locked. And it was at that very second when she released the most horrific, gurgling cheeser you could ever imagine, never once breaking visual contact. I fell back, quite startled. While I might have released a small passel of gas once or twice in my life, I try to reserve it for lone elevators or the empty frozen foods section, not right at the front of the store, with so many innocent muggles in direct attendance.

You will accuse me of embellishing and yes, I do on occasion. But I swear to you that this dowager's spontaneous effluence reeked of holy hell, Beelzebub himself would be incapable of such a fetid, demonic wind. The whole left side of the store was soon held captive by the matronly swamp gas.

Staggering, I finally broke her death stare and stumbled my way to the register where I saw a woman I knew, D---, who works for Ron W----'s wife at the ranch. "Did you hear that," I asked, gasping and rapidly explained the sudden olfactory assault I had been so rudely subjected to. She had not but said that it was not a big deal, they all do it.

And that is why I am going to lay off the Dollar Store for a while. Place knocked me senseless.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oy….

Anonymous said...

“Small passel once in a while”???

Anonymous said...

Ah! Old age, when the sphincter no longer hold…

Linda said...

I do not generally laugh at bathroom humor, but your piece is such an exception that I had re-read it ALOUD to Joseph. Your talent with words was not wasted on this worthy endeavor and it surely made my day.

Jon Harwood said...

She is probably a Buddha of some special sort.

Blue Heron said...

The sharting buddha?

Anonymous said...

But what self esteem she processes to hold your gaze while releasing her odious gases… L

Blue Heron said...

Her self steam was definitely rising...