At a Local Family-Owned Hardware Store
SETTING:
Aisle 16,
between the rope on 16a and the bolts in 16b
CHARACTERS:
Tall
muscular guy in his thirties, long pony tail half-way down his back;
Short,
heavy-set woman in her sixties, pushing medium-length gray hair out of her face
ACTION:
Man
takes one bolt from a slot, examines it, puts it back, takes another and repeats
process.
Woman studies rack of packaged rope,
reaches up, touches one, screws up her eyes.
CONVERSATION:
Woman: Excuse me, could I
ask you a question?
Man: Sure, but I
don’t work here. I’m just another
customer.
Woman: Oh, that’s all right. I don’t think I
need someone with special qualifications for this. This question is just in the
regular person category.
Man: Okay. Go
ahead.
Woman: I need to buy rope, but they have all
kinds of varieties here, and I don’t know which one would be strong enough.
Does this seem to be a strong rope?
Man: What are you going to use it for?
Woman: I want to tie a mattress to the roof
of a car and drive it about ten miles.
Man: Oh, I did that
once.
Woman: Oh, and then I’ll have to drive a
different mattress back home.
Man: Well, let me
take a look. (He touches several ropes.)
Woman: You said that you tied a mattress to the roof of a car
and drove it someplace?
Man: Yeah.
Woman: Then you’re the
exactly the right person for me to ask! How
did it go?
Man: It was a
disaster. The mattress flew off the top of the car.
Woman: Oh. I was afraid of
that.
Man: The air gets
underneath the mattress. It just flies up.
Woman: I was thinking I’d
get pretty strong rope.
Man: If you look at
these, the package tells you how much weight they can handle. See, this one can take a 20 pound
load, and this one is 33.
Woman: I see. Okay.
Man: Get the 44
pound. That’s a lot of weight. That might be enough.
Woman: Thank you. I figured I’d tie that
mattress in at least two or three places. Think that might work?
Man: That’s a good
idea. I only tied it in one place. That didn’t work.
Woman: See? You’re a great
person to ask. You have experience with this.
Man: Yeah, except
the mattress flew off my car roof. What a mess. But, hey, good luck!
Woman: Wait. I have one more
question. Did the mattress survive?
Man: That’s a good
question. Yeah, it did.
Woman: Not a total loss,
then. Thanks.
~Kate Lydon Varley
