I stopped in at the grocery market on 12th Street and purchased a couple food items. It was Tuesday so the store was filled with Tuesday discount shoppers. In one checkout line four or five group home residents were lined up with an assortment of express lane items. In the lane I chose an older couple (as in, older than me) was slowly shuffling through the mechanics of buying groceries. The checker, a middle-aged high functioning special needs man, was cheerily and patiently providing customer assistance. A bottle blond and hairspray grandma a little younger than me approached with her six year old grandson. He flopped the purchases up on the belt. I reached for the divider bar and inserted it between orders, whereupon grandma said, “Oh. Sorry.” (“no problem”). And the odor of alcohol wafted on the air. Not too whiny and not too impatient, the little boy began to while away the time by singing:
Boy: Baa Baa black sheep have you any wool…”
Checker (as he begins to scan my items): Well all I have to say to that is, ‘yes sir, yes, sir three bags full.’
Grandma: ‘One for my master and dum dem dum, how’s that go? Lives down the lane.
Checker: sings the lines again and gets stuck in the same phrase.
The line has now been joined by a white female of approximately 35 in a tank top and tattoo looking like a muscle builder who needs to loose 50 pounds fast.
Grandma and Boy: Baa Baa black sheep have you any wool, yes sir, yes sir, three bags full. One for my master and one ….????
Newcomer: One for my master and one……dum de dum…lives in the lane. How does that go?
Me (having completed payment): One for my master and one for my dame and one for the little boy that lives down the lane.
Where upon the pleased cashier spins and high fives me jubilantly.
We all slept well that night.