Third day in the books for my writing class. We have some optional assignments. I have one that I think will be helpful for my book, the other less so, which is the one below.
Setting: A grocery store. Situation: Two shoppers accidently bump their shoping carts into each other. One shopper is wearing a Hillary for President button. The other is wearing a red MAGA hat. Then what happens?
A bearded man in Birkenstocks pushed his cart along, around and through the various section of the produce isle, cucumbers here, lettuce there, lots of lettuce of at least three kinds, romaine, mixed, and spinache, and if spinache does not count as lettuce, it certainly couns as a vegetable, along with the canned beats and fifty cans of legumes he loaded up one isle over. Between the canned foods and produce he had encounterd the tea aisle, which explained the boxes of green and chamomile tea carefully stacked upon the assorted cans of pinto, red, black and garbanzo beans, lots of garbanzo beans as he planned on making a quadruple batch of hummus that evening. The fruit followed the vegtables as is usual in most stores, cantalope, and a couple of watermelon, oranges and apples. Let us simply say that by the time the man with the Hillary for President button pinned to the right pocket of his pajama top inadvertently bumped into the other cart exiting the meat isle, it was of considerable more heft than that of the one containing only two packs of chicken thighs, three soft bricks of hamburger, and a prime rib. Had it been a Saturday, the man in the MAGA hat would have had his car, and as the beer aisle was before the meat department, his cart would have had three cases of Blitz, two twelve packs of Spotted Cow of 12 oz bottles, and a four pack of New Glarus Strawberry Rhubarb, his girlfriends favorite, but it was not Saturday. It was Thursday, a regular work day, and he was driving his Harley, so everything had to fit in the saddle bags.
Had the man in the Birkenstocks not been distracted by the ping of a text from his financial advisor with the happy news that his trust fund had grown by 15% in the past quarter, the collision would never have occured, but he was, and it did.
“Don’t shoot me!” screamed the man in the Birkenstocks, terrified of the potential threat from the red hatted man whom everyone knew must absolutely be an insurrectionist and a racist.
“Hunh?”
“Back off, I have mace in my clutch!” Instinctively his hand shot to the black canvas bag hanging from his left shoulder, he being right-handed. His hand froze there, threateningly. He directed a steely gaze at the white supremist, likely, very similar to those of Nazi Germany as had recently learned from a program while drinking Chai tea with his significant other.
“Why are you filled with so much hate?”
“Because orange man bad.”
“I’m not orange man.”
“You wear his hat.”
“To me, this hat means energy independence, low unemployment, food on the shelves, illegal aliens not pouring across the boarder, pride in America being first among nations, and cheap gas. If you have a problem with those things, then hate them, not me, and rejoice, because they are all no longer.”
The Birkenstock man thought this over, his face softening, a gentle light filling his eyes. His arm lowered. “I’m sorry,” he said, “All you said is true. I don’t hate you.” He stepped away from his cart, arms outspread, “How about a hug.”
“No offense, but I only hug girls, but have a nice day all the same and God Bless.”
At the words God Bless, his entire body tensed as though waiting for the sound the gun you hear at the start of a race, “God is a destructive myth,” he said, the gentle light in his eyes estinguished as he rebuffed, again, God’s grace.
“Just because you don’t believe doesn’t mean He is not there. He was, He is, and He will be, forevermore. All you need do is open your heart, but you are free to believe what you will, Do not take that from me.” He backed up his cart and walked away, Birkenstock boy standing still, staring at him like the Grinch on Christmas Eve down on Whoville with a heart two sizes too small.