I visited Goodwill this evening to buy some toy dolls (another story; but trust me, I needed some toy dolls). Ahead of me in the checkout line was a baggy old man wearing baggy old clothes and a beat-up set of headphones.
When the cashier finished ringing up the old man’s purchase, she told him the total, “Four dollars and ninety-two cents, please.” The old man asked, “What?” The cashier repeated the price. The old man put his left hand near his left headphone and again asked, “What?” The flummoxed cashier again told him the total, “Four dollars and ninety-two cents,” but said it more loudly, leaving out the ‘please’. The old man, appearing frustrated, pulled the left headphone away from his ear and again asked, “What?” Once more the cashier told him the total, “Four dollars and ninety-two cents.”
At this point the old man let the headphone snap back over his left ear and said to the cashier, angrily, “Well, why didn’t you say that the first time!”. He then began to slowly and carefully rummage through his baggy old clothes in search of his wallet, which he finally found in a very strange place, the back pocket of his pants.
Convinced I had been teleported back to the 70’s and Allen Funt was still alive, I looked carefully around the front of the store for hidden cameras. I expected an assistant producer to walk up and hand me a pen and a model release while a TV crew with cameras and sound equipment rushed me from nowhere. No such luck.
What a shame. I would like to have lived through the Seventies again. It may have been a boring decade, but it seemed to last forever. That’s a big plus when you hit your Fifties.

June 26, 2012