(near the west virginia border)

I was in Safeway tonight, held up in line while a young guy and the cashier tried to wrestle a giant pack of diapers over the scanner. Another guy behind him started an enthusiatic conversation about raising small children. It was awkwardly one-sided and I kind of hoped he wouldn’t talk to me, but we were all saved by an angry Latin woman yelling about how they’d scammed her. As she waved her receipt around like a badly-weighted epee, conversation guy popped open an box of nuts he hadn’t paid for and turned to me wide-eyed.

“Wow! Man.”

I looked down at my instant grits. “This place is never boring.”

“I know,” he said, bobbing up and down and throwing barbecued almonds into his mouth. “Life’s fun, right?“