Shopping

We head to the grocery store.  A man stands at the entrance next to a bowl of sliced clementines.  He wears glasses with black frames.  He has curly hair, verging on messy.  He’s thin and tall and has his hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans.  In a horrible monotone, he welcomes us to the store.  I barely nod and veer around him, because to approach his sample display; to take a piece of fruit would lock me into some invisible and unknown contract; it would oblige me to something greater than just groceries.

Near the produce, a man stands behind a glass device—a hot machine with a large lamp at the top.  The man tosses in a flattish brown disc and shuts the door.  Ten seconds later—WHOMP!—the disc pops and expands and the air fills with the odor of hot buttered popcorn.  No one, I notice, stops to investigate this device further. 

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