Cornered in the supermarket

Here's a tale from eight years ago today!

"So where's your book?" came a question as I grabbed my supermarket shopping basket. I turned to find a large man staring at me with playful eyes, awaiting his answer. So I mentioned that I don't read while walking at Reasor's.

"The isles are too small and irregular," I told him. "But I do read at the mall," I added, just to see if I'd read him right. And I had.

"No!" he said with joy, his eyes shooting up.

So I explained how i'd just finished going through Promenade, which was still open then, and it's largest parking garage... which proved an unnecessary trip when the rain didn't fall, but if I'd stayed at the river, things might have been damper, as they have been so many times on10-percent forecasts this year.

That interchange started a 30-minute discussion about reading and walking with someone who apparently has observed me many times along the Arkansas River. He told how once he'd tried to play a trick on me, taking a purposeful collision course as I held my nose in a book. He laughed in sharing how I casually slipped by him without skipping a page, and wanted to know just how I did it. Apparently my explanation didn't win him over. He simply shook his head, doubting he could ever accomplish this.

Once that talk ended, I crossed to the meat counter and ended up giving a meatball endorsement to a couple who wondered why I was buying four of them. So I provided a verbal cooking lesson on how meatballs equalled already cooked and seasoned ground beef when crumbled upon a slice of flatbread or hamburger bun -- near-instant sloppy joe, pizza, or sandwich with your chosen toppings. After a few questions they thanked me with enthusiasm before ordering four meatballs of their own.

And that's how my simple, brief shopping list took almost an hour to fill.