I’ve made my purchasing decisions, probably having taken more time than what was planned and necessary. The sheer ease and comfort of shopping in Omaha compared to shopping in Los Angeles does not help my natural tendencies of indecision and lack of focus. I’ll find myself wandering the aisles, checking out all the new products I have no use for. Wow, there’s new toothpaste that is like the kind you get at the dentist? Awesome! (Pick it up, read the fine print). Hmmm…but only sixteen uses with one purchase? Let me compare ounces. I amble along, bathing in the lack of stress and marveling at how everything is so bright and clean. The fluorescent lights reflect so strongly off the smudge-free glass, I can hardly see the Stouffer’s Mac and Cheese.
I gather myself and head for a line. Which one? So many open options to choose from! I’ve actually had two checkout people vie for my attention – no joke. It was at Menard’s. A man was standing in front of the conveyer belt, which was a bit confusing. He made eye contact. I smiled, not too brightly, just a natural social interaction that subtly asks: are you in fact capable of checking out my single light bulb purchase? (Note: the sole item decided upon after strolling the wide aisles for 40 minutes). He looked away, out of shyness not impoliteness, I could tell, but he did move towards his register. Suddenly a bubbly woman in the next aisle popped out and said, “I can help you right here.” I stopped dead in my tracks. What to do? Avoiding the situation, I looked down, thinking it might disappear – it did not. Instead, I saw the ugly push button light in my hand, my only item, so I didn’t even have the option of splitting up my purchases between the two aisles to appease both. Now I sensed my own awkwardness and made the quick and easier choice to follow the bubbly, vocal woman, thus rejecting the socially awkward guy who spotted me first. Obviously, I still think about this choice — probably too much.
The checkout person is most likely an older woman or man (perhaps a post-retirement job, or a way to make a little extra money in these hard times) or an eager, white-teethed high school student. If they’re bored or don’t like their job, they hide it very well. The probability of braces and crisp, starched white shirts are high. There are smiles all around. This, in itself, is an unusual experience for me. Then comes the real Nebraska kicker: “Would you like a sack with that?”
Was I being offered some type of weird promotion? I think of a potato sack or a 2nd grader’s brown paper lunch bag filled with peanut butter and jelly and a hand-written note. Neither sound bad, though I don’t particularly need either at this moment. “No thanks,” I reply. A sack? Really? I haven’t heard that term, since, well, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard that term, at least not referring to a bag that you would carry your purchases in. What does come to mind is an image of a dirt-smeared, torn jeans, rail-riding traveler with a bandanna tied around a wooden walking stick thrown over a shoulder comes to mind. Someone you might call a hobo, if you still use that outdated term – the Halloween version of homeless person or gutterpunk. That red bandanna filled with their worldly possessions? That’s what I call a sack. The bulky thing that Santa throws over his shoulder at Christmas? Also a sack. The bag (often with dollar sign adornment) that a robber stuffs his loot into: sack.
So what does it all mean and what shall I do? I shall make my way to Menards, set my non-existent watch timer for 30 minutes, find two large burlap bags, proudly stride up to gawky, self-conscious bagger, re-right my wrongs and voilá: I have two semantic and environmentally friendly sacks for my next shopping trip.