Clean-Up In Aisle 13

We didn’t need a lot of items from Wal-Mart, but since I had to go to the cleaners and the credit union, I decided to go ahead and get it out of the way and knew early morning was the best time to go. I got the cart, the right front wheel periodically touching the polished cement floor and other times dangling and spinning, and headed for the supplement, dietary, and vitamin aisles. I was dressed in shorts, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes unlike the khakis, short sleeved polo shirt, and bucks with a half-inch heel I wore to my quarterly church service the day before, where I sang songs and listened to a sermon I mostly agreed with and left feeling like I could do better, maybe stop cursing daily at everything from a fly that got into the house to getting out of the bed and having an eyelash swimming in the white of my eye, be nicer to the family I saw as like Ross Perot’s giant sucking sound, draining my bathtub bank account, and help others like the self-proclaimed homeless guy camped in the shadows of the mall entrance who wanted a five and I lied and said I had no cash when I knew I had a twenty. If he was an angel or Jesus in disguise, I was doomed for hell; my sporadic attendance and attempts at change were for naught.

When I turned onto the soap and toothpaste aisle, two elderly ladies who’d probably been in the same service the day before, said, “Excuse me. Do you think you could reach that two for one generic pain reliever on the top shelf?” I replied, “Sure,” thinking this could be a whole new leaf for me to turn over like the minister said. Besides, you can never find those employees with the shelf grabbers in the store when you need them. You can only see the ones who are gathering a grocery list for some lazy ass sitting in one of those curb side parking spaces in front of the store, their air conditioning blowing and their radio blaring music too loud for human ears.

I stepped up on the first shelf closest to the floor, shoved whatever items were there further back with my feet and stretched. My fingers touched it. I noticed the old lady was only saving fifty cents by buying the generic, and who knows what she was buying, some knock-off brand made in a foreign country and packed by slave labor making corporate giants even larger, modern-day Goliaths with all that money.

If I had been wearing my bucks, I’d been able to get it quickly, but on the third try, I knocked the two-pack wrapped in plastic to the floor along with about ten other items, one container of pre workout that spilled out that could have easily been dust from a concrete job. Worst of all, I said the “F” word, the women covering their mouths with hands whether from shock or from laughter. One said, “Oh, thank you so much. You’re such a blessing. It’s nice to see people who are still willing to help.”

I smiled, embarrassed at my reaction, but when they rounded the corner, I said it again under my breath. I think I ripped the underarm of my T-shirt, which cost more than the fifty cents she saved, and a blue vested employee who’d heard the commotion and wore a smiley face button badge rounded the corner and asked what’d happened. I told him I’d reached up to get something for these elderly women, and these other items came tumbling down like Humpty Dumpty, and he offered his best frowny face complete with raised brows and grimace. He’d look like a sad clown if he’d been wearing make-up like the woman at the exit, perched on a stool, who tried to cover wrinkles and sagging skin with a color of make-up that didn’t match her skin while she checked pretended to check receipts. He might as well have screamed, “Liar, liar, pants on fire” because I knew he didn’t believe me, but at least someone didn’t have to shout “Clean up on Aisle 13” over the loudspeaker.

I knew I’d be sore tomorrow from my stretch, and I moved down the aisles and on toward the self-check-out and had near cart misses with others who were wandering aimlessly slow and zombie-like gazing at all of the deal signs. They were nothing more than rural citizens raised in poverty who always dreamed of having more, all made off the backs of others who were even poorer in other countries. I didn’t buy everything there, however. I comparison-shopped and went to different stores to get the best buy for my money. I’d learned that from my dad who would drive across the city to buy a gallon of milk, probably saving a buck, but wasting gas, causing wear and tear on his car, and squandering increments of time that could’ve been spent with the family. When my mother had pointed out his lack of logic, he mumbled the “F” word, sunk into his recliner, and hid behind a newspaper so we’d leave him alone. That’s how he died, with the news on his face, and we buried him at the newer cemetery behind Wal-Mart because it was the best deal.

I think about him every time I shop, especially with that horrible view he has of the loading docks.

BIO: Niles Reddick is author of a novel, four short fiction collections, and two novellas. His work has appeared in over five hundred publications including The Saturday Evening Post (which ranked him among the Top Ten Most Popular New Fiction of 2019), Cheap Pop, Flash Fiction Magazine, Citron Review, Midway Journal, Hong Kong Review, and Vestal Review. He is an eight-time Pushcart nominee, a three-time Best of the Net nominee, and a three-time Best Micro nominee.