Bob

Batz

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December 5, 2008

Seeking Shoelaces in the Superstore

I was in one of those humongous superstores the other day. I went there to buy a pair of shoelaces.

I figured it would be a piece of cake. I’m thinking five, maybe 10 minutes tops, and I’d be out of there before my car engine even had time to cool down.

I mean, how difficult could it be to find a pair of shoelaces? Everybody needs shoelaces, don’t they?

That’s what I thought, all right. But I was wrong.

I began my search for shoelaces in the store’s shoe department.

I’m no dummy, you know. Shoelaces. Shoe department. It’s a no-brainer, if I ever heard one.

But during my 32 minutes in the shoe department, I found socks, slippers, boots and lots of other things. What I didn’t find was shoelaces.

Undaunted, I visited several other departments where I found Barbie Dolls, frying pans, light bulbs, bath towels, deodorant, Paula Deen cookbooks that had eight pages and sold for $18.95, potting soil and scads of other things.

That’s when I suddenly realized this was going to be much more than just a quick trip to the store to buy shoelaces.

Suddenly my little shopping trip had become as challenging as scaling Mt. Everest, or winning an argument with my wife. 

That’s when I decided to find somebody who worked at the store and ask him, or her, to direct me to the shoelaces. But this store, like so many other stores these days, apparently didn’t have any employees because I looked and looked and I didn’t find a single man or woman wearing a name tag that said something like “HI, MY NAME IS LOIS. HOW MAY I HELP YOU?”

Then, 20 minutes into my search for a store employee, I found one. She was wearing a sticker with a big smiley face on it.

“Excuse me,” I said, politely.

“What the hell do you want?” she snarled, not taking her eyes off the display of brassieres she was tinkering with.

“I was wondering if you could direct me to the shoelaces section,” I said.

“Hmmm,” she replied. “Shoelaces . . . shoelaces . . . shoelaces . . . hmmm . . . let me think . . . ahh . . . yes . . . yes . . . aisle four . . . ummm . . . across from the motor oil and just east of the skateboards.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“No problem,” she replied.

And I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was wrong about that.

Contact Bob at bbatz@woh.rr.com.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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