Yesterday, I was in Symon's General Store, here in Petoskey, MI. I was buying a cup of coffee. There was a man in front of me, he was buying a bag of candy. Assorted candies, to be specific. From behind the cash register the clerk yelled to the back asking how much to charge for the candy. (He worked in the wine cellar, the general store was not his usual gig). From the office a voice returned, "Ten dollars a pound." The man, toting the candies, thusly responded, "Highway robbery!" Then, he dutifully handed over the green.
Admittedly, ten dollars a pound is a bit steep. But, why waste your breath and pollute my soundscape with this incessant noise.
Even in Ferguson, NC, the heart of hillbilly North Carolina, I heard the infamous highway robbery decree. My mother used to own a little country store, a gas and grocery out in Ferguson. Some called it, affectionately, Kim's Shit 'N Git. The store has man yregular patrons. One of these patrons was the bent and graying Bob Eller. Every single day Bob Eller would come in around 2:00 in the afternoon and get a tin of Vienna Sausages for lunch, with a complimentary pack of saltines.. And, every single day Bob Eller would claim that we were comitting highway robbery when we told him that they were $3.95. He would then proceed to tell us how he could buy the very same can of Vienna Sausages in town at Food Lion for $1.95.
Then, one day Terry, a man hired by my mom to run the store from time to time, who was very well acquainted with the land up there, as well as subtle intricacies of conversing with its inhabitants, responded to Mr. Eller. I guess the daily protests from Bob had suddenly become too much for Terry to handle. As soon as the last syllable of "robbery" left Bob Eller's lips Terry responded, "Bob, why in the hell don't you go to Food Lion and get your god damned wieners!" Bob never questioned our pricing from that day on.
In order to save the employees of Symon's the same daily onslaught I came very close to telling the candy shopper the same thing. Alas, it would not have gone over quite as well. There are no Food Lions in Michigan.
1 comment:
On my flight home yesterday, the man across the aisle from me was muttering every cliche about flying he could muster. "Now I know how sardines feel..." "Geez, guess I won't be able to spread out my legs..."
Give me a break. We all know what we're getting when we buy our ticket. Don't like it? Drive. At the very least be quiet so the rest of us can be crunched into our seats in peace.
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