"Hey," Allie answered her phone.
"I just got kicked out of a store," I said.
"Oh god. WHAT DID YOU DO?"
"Nothing!"
Now, I'm not saying that I was in Home 'N Hearth with the purest of intentions, but I didn't deserve to be kicked out. The kitchy shop smells of doilies and Geritol and is replete with heart-covered aprons and "Kiss the Cook" plaques. Stank Troll Brenda visited the shop for some reason. She sent me the following photograph.
This, I had to own. I had dreams of mounting it on the door of my guest bedroom. I had dreams of buying them in bulk and setting up a booth at Gay Pride week, then retiring.
There was one problem with the dream: by the time I got to the store, the sign was gone. I circled the store twice, looking at every treacly plaque there. I was aware that I didn't exactly blend with the clientele, that the octogenarian behind the counter was staring disdainfully at me, but I didn't think much of it until...
"Can I help you find something?" she snapped, as though she couldn't hold it back any longer.
"No thanks. I'm just looking."
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave," she said with a nervous over-assertiveness.
I chuckled. The old-fart capacity for acting decisively when dead-wrong never ceases to amuse me. I truly had no designs on stealing her American flag oven mitts. Honest.
Seriously? Is shoplifting really a problem here? And not for nothing, but my company has enough cash in its checking account to buy her entire inventory forty times. I felt a twinge of "Let's see you kick me out, bitch," but the truth of the matter is that I was done with my search—and more importantly, in my old age it's less important to prove anything to such people than it is to not know them at all.
Still chuckling, I left and called Allie.
"What were you wearing?" she asked.
I was dressed for my typical work day. Gym shorts and a ratty t-shirt. I call it "Homeless Chic."
"Maybe this is a sign you should clean up your act."
I could surely do better, sympathy-wise. I dialed 614.
"I got kicked out of a store for the first time ever where I wasn't with a black guy," I told d'Andre.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?"