Spitball Army

Contestant #1:  Wal-Mart returns desk clerk

I arrive in line and there are three people ahead of me.  The second person in line is a woman returning food.  I kid you not.  FOOD!  She is cradling a plastic basket in one arm and a baby in the other arm.  I can see that the basket contains several items, including Pop Tarts, baby socks, and those unnaturally orange cheese crackers.  The baby leans over and drools on the crackers.  I strike up a conversation with the woman in front of me, who is friendly, funny and warm.  She recognizes a woman behind us, standing at the check-out counter, and offers me her place in line.  I am now in line behind the food woman.  Her baby begins to drool on the Pop Tarts.

Eventually, it is my turn at the front of the line.  I hand the clerk my item and receipt as I say, “Hi, how are you?”

She doesn’t reply.  She looks at my item.  She looks at my receipt.  She sighs.  She doesn’t look at me.  She sets the item down, turns around, and puts the prior customer’s soggy crackers and Pop Tarts in a shopping basket with two dozen sundry items that have been returned by others.  This done, she walks to the end of the counter, grabs a bottle of soda from beneath the countertop, and takes a long, slow drink from it.  She then looks at the clock on the wall and sighs.  Worn out from her travelling, she then slowly trods back to her position opposite me.  There are now nine people behind me in line.

She picks up the telephone and makes a call.  “Mret shef any owen klite!” she says into the phone.  Almost immediately, a short woman shoots around the counter from behind me, looking official.  She walks over to the clerk, looks at the item, looks at the receipt, doesn’t look at me.  She grunts at the clerk and leaves us.

The clerk begins typing on the register, holding the receipt in one hand.

“Will you need to see the credit card that I made that purchase with?” I ask her.  She glances up at me without moving her head, showing the whites of her eyes, and continues typing.  Unlike the other employees loitering nearby, she doesn’t have a name tag, and is wearing a t-shirt with food stains that begin about six inches below her chin and continue to where her navel might be.  She says nothing and looks back at the screen.

A co-worker saunters up to us.  I say Hello.  The co-worker smiles, briefly.  The co-worker lifts the item, looks at the barcode on the bottom, looks at the receipt.  She sets the item down and pats the top of the box.  There, there, good item.  She walks away, saying nothing.

The clerk finishes typing.  She scans the barcode on the box.  She pulls a pen from her back pocket and scribbles on the receipt.  She hands me the old receipt, along with a new credit receipt, by folding them together and thrusting them toward me in her hand.  She doesn’t look at me.  As I reach for the receipts, the clerk hollers “Next!” startling me slightly.  I take one last look at her, offering a final opportunity for eye contact, and notice that she is checking the time on the clock on the wall.

When I first heard “Alicia Ross,” my initial impulse was to play it over again immediately.  I did.  Then I played it again.  The narrative voice in the lyrics was so strong that I wondered if it was perhaps based on a true story.  A quick googling of “Alicia+Ross” gave me a series of websites, including this one, titled “In Loving Memory of Alicia Ross.”

Alicia Ross disappeared in 2005, about the same time that Natalee Holloway vanished on her high school graduation trip to Aruba.  Here in Birmingham, Natalee Holloway’s place of residence, we heard daily updates on the Natalee situation for months.  I assume that the American press discussed her tragic story from coast to coast on a regular basis.  But, in the three years between the time that Alicia Ross was abducted and Kathleen Edwards’ meditation on the crime was released on CD, I had never heard mention of Alicia Ross once.

Maybe that says something about the self-absorption of us Americans, that we paid such little attention to a similar tragedy right across our border, a tragedy no less compelling or horrific than the one right here in our neighborhood.  Could it be that Canadians keep their misfortunes closer to themselves, that they operate with a stoicism that we do not?

What is not debatable is that Alicia Ross, in her short life, touched many people.  Those who knew her and those who have only heard her story share their thoughts and memories on an ongoing basis here.

I am a girl with a forgettable face
No matter my color, no matter my name
At work there is a boy and he treats me well
My old friends from high school,
I see them around

August is here I can’t believe how fast
Soon there will be winter and snow on the ground
Maybe by then I could get my own place
Closer to the city if that’s okay

Mamma, can you feel me?
As I dragged on my day’s last cigarette
He pulled me so hard off my
Very own back door steps

And he laid me in his garden
All the years I’ve watched him tend
And then he took me, Mamma,
So I could never tell you about it

Inside of this moment there are
Things that I wish I could know
Like your ring size, and my ring size,
And the hour I was born
And my dad’s middle name, and your favorite song
Was your darkest day as dark as this one?

Mamma, can you feel me?
As I dragged on my day’s last cigarette
He pulled me so hard off my
Very own back door steps

And he laid me in his garden
All the years I’ve watched him tend
And then he took me, Mamma,
So I could never tell you about it
Now I’m a girl whose face they’ll never forget

[audio:Kathleen_Edwards___Alicia_Ross.mp3]
“Alicia Ross” by Kathleen Edwards, from Asking For Flowers (2008)

Today’s kernel of universal wisdom comes courtesy of Ry Cooder:

Well, you know, every day can’t be Sunday.

It’s a funny thing, seems like just before daylight is your darkest hour.

And you know one thing? Behind every silver lining, there isn’t a dark cloud.

And you just ain’t got time to go around just subtractin’ and addin’ because you’ll just be too late.

You know one thing? Every time you get around a tree, you better stop and grab a brick. Old Man Trouble, is layin’ a-waitin’ on ya!

[audio:Ry_Cooder___Trouble_You_Cant_Fool_Me_(excerpt).mp3]
from “Trouble, You Can’t Fool Me” by Ry Cooder, from Bop Till You Drop (1979)

If we only used questionable judgment to pick our favorites, then, from the pantheon of favorite songs (sorted by topic area), here would be some of mine:

1. My favorite song about recidivism:  “Do It Again” by Steely Dan.

Sample lyric:

In the mornin’ you go gunnin’
For the man who stole your water
And you fire till he is done in
But they catch you at the border
And the mourners are all singin’
As they drag you by your feet
But the hangman isn’t hangin’
So they put you on the street.

2. My favorite song about the Mexican Revolution:  “Fernando” by ABBA.

Sample lyric:

Now we’re old and grey, Fernando
And since many years I haven’t seen a rifle in your hand
Can you hear the drums Fernando?
Do you still recall the frightful night we crossed the Rio Grande?
I can see it in your eyes
How proud you were to fight for freedom in this land. 

3. My favorite song about cannibalism:  “Timothy” by The Buoys.  I don’t believe the explanation that Timothy was a pack mule.

Sample lyric:

Trapped in a mine that had caved in
And everyone knows the only ones left
Were Joe and me and Tim
When they broke through to pull us free
The only ones left to tell the tale
Were Joe and me…

…I must have blacked out just around then
‘Cause the very next thing that I could see
Was the light of the day again
My stomach was full as it could be
And nobody ever got around
To finding Timothy.

[audio:Buoys___Timothy.mp3]

4. My favorite 8-minute song about a mass murderer:  “Ticking” by Elton John.

Sample lyric:

They had you holed up in a downtown bar screaming for a priest
Some gook said “His brain’s just snapped,” then someone called the police
You’d knifed a Negro waiter who had tried to calm you down
You pulled a gun and told them all to lay still on the ground.

[audio:Elton_John___Ticking.mp3]

5. My favorite song about a dead little girl and her equally dead puppy (I have so many favorites in this category!): “Me and Little Andy” by Dolly Parton.

Sample lyric:

She was just a little girl, not more than six or seven
But that night as they slept the angels took them both to heaven
God knew Little Andy would be lonesome with her gone
Now Sandy and her puppy dog won’t ever be alone.

[audio:Dolly_Parton___Me_and_Little_Andy.mp3]

So far today, I have been able to put to use the following things:

• wheelbarrow with a flat tire
• hoe
• 2 bags Moo-nure (“We’re Number 1 in the Number 2 Business!”)
• hard rake
• leaf rake
• 4 bags cedar mulch
• spade
• hedge clippers
• loppers
• garden hose
• hammer
• screwdriver
• tarp
• tiller
• canvas work gloves
• re-appropriated U.S. Postal Service bin
• play sand
• 2″ x 4″ wooden plank
• old red bricks
• pickaxe
• square-edge shovel
• push broom

The sun is now out in full force and the temperature has passed 90°, so the tools are put away until tomorrow.  Can you guess what I was doing?