What's Going On "Down There?"

One of our regular customers is a homeless man. I know if I were homeless, a bookstore would be the first place I'd call home away from the streets. This man usually wears nasty old green scrubs and carries a winter coat with him and a few bags of newspapers. His shoes are the kind of slippers with Velcro that you would wear if you'd broken your foot, and his socks have run out of toes. He's always polite and makes light conversation. He generally sits in the same chair in the Community Room everyday, but on Tuesdays and Fridays, story-time leaves him to use another part of the store to read his pile of meticulously folded newspapers and snooze. Yesterday, he rushed into the store and I almost didn't recognize him. He bounded towards me in a bit of a hurry. He had on a "new" dirty t-shirt and fleece sweat pants instead of his regular "uniform", and was carrying a faux leather computer bag instead of his ratty old shopping bag. As he rushed by me, the stench of urine and sweat wafted after him, as did my shocked eyes. His pants were completely split and ripped up the rear, flapping in the wind and leaving nothing to the imagination. Not only was I horrified, but it was 10-minutes before story-time was about to start and pretty soon there would be a store full of toddlers eye-level with "Look, mommy! No Fruit of the Looms!"

We fortunately found him a longer shirt to wear, which barely covered the scene of the crime. He gratefully took the shirt and then settled down into the cushy chair and cracked open his new case full of papers. Remind me to never, ever sit in those chairs again.

On a more fragrant note, tonight, while shopping at Publix, I made a quick stop by the pharmacy to check my blood pressure (112/69 in case you're interested). While waiting for my arm-cuff to exhale, I noticed a woman-of-weight in one of those motorized shopping carts beep-beep-beeping backwards down the aisle towards me as she tried to parallel park next to the feminine hygiene display. I wouldn't have given her a second glance except that she was rather loudly ordering her 20-something-year-old son to hand her can after can of Summer's Eve aerosol. Each canister he diligently offered her, she opened, sprayed liberally into the air several times and then sniffed, stating..."No, that's not the one I like! Give me another." And he did. After about the fifth one, she exuberantly exclaimed..."Yes, that's it! That's the one I like!" Now that she'd found her fruit of the loom, she threw the winner in her basket. She then revved her engines and rolled away leaving the air behind her sneezing with an odoriferous blend of "Baby Powder Fresh", "Intimate Whisper", "Island Splash", and "Tropical Rain". I think my blood pressure shot up a few points after witnessing this absolute disregard for the store's inventory. Not to mention the poor woman who unknowingly buys one of the pre-spritzed cans. Hopefully she won't get caught with her pants down expecting a month's worth of deodorant protection only to fall short by the weekend.

Aerosol-Chick-on-Wheels was spotted a few minutes later on yet another mission. This time, with her son on the floor rummaging through a display of beans, looking for the kind she likes. I sure hope he didn't have a can opener handy. As they were headed for the paper products aisle, I conveniently made my exit; I just didn't want to know.