Murder. Hit
two lines running at the Walgreens’ checkout yesterday and flung face-first flat flush into the stone
wall that time forgot. Old people, in
line, ten deep, and neither they nor the line was moving a micro-mote. A t’weener couple about my age happened up
behind me and from their comments I could tell they saw as I saw.
“It’s surreal,”
said the square-jawed man shaking his head.
“It’s been like this all fuckin’ day.
Just surreal.”
Like myself,
these two people had also just arrived from the Walmart across the street and like
me they had noticed that the snow birds were back in Charlotte County with a
vengeance. This fact makes itself abundantly
clear by the increased number of creeping, addled old people shuffling about,
taking ten times the time to do what we normals do in . . . do in . . . what we
normals do in one tenth the time, that’s what.
First tip
came outside Wally World where I had noticed a larger than normal number of
electric blob scooters abandoned around the parking lot. Once inside, seemed about every fourth person
was being lugged along by a scooter. At
the intersections in the grocery section, it was a mess. In virtually every aisle, at virtually every
store intersection where shopping carts meet, the geezers were causing traffic
jams. Seems just as they do in their
horseless carriages outside on the streets, they become “confused” here inside when
more than one cart confronts them at a store intersection. Invariably, they then just stop, stand still,
don’t move, look bewildered, look mildly distressed, look like they have
entered the most amazing and difficult of labyrinths. When young rapscallions like me get
frustrated and whip through the log jam with our carts, the oldsters give us
the evil eye or, as one female fossil said to me with high indignation, “EXCUSE ME!” (Wonder if this was sweet
Adeline in the flesh, the same I blogged about who made a big deal about waitresses
calling her and other ladies “guys”—7.12.11 “Guys, Geckos & Geezers”) I
seriously don’t mean to be rude but I also don’t intend to spend half a day in
Walmart by joining the corpse creep and crawl, either.
Back to
Walgreens: Not only were we, the people
in the line, frozen, immovable, mute, stunned, silent, but the ancient cashiers
seemed deathly slow, as in snail-like, grass-growing slow. To my untrained eye they also seemed very
inept, as in senile, befuddled, all-systems shut down inept. Each item purchased appeared to take the cashiers
at least 15 seconds to look at, 10 seconds to turn slowly from side to side to side, 15 seconds more to find the
bar code, 30 seconds of turning the product upside down, sideways, etc.—“No, that’s not right,
either. Ha, ha. Let’s see, is it this way? No, not that way. Hmmmm. Maybe this way. No. . . .”--then swipe the product 5-20 times and
pausing with each swipe as if there was a magic five-second delay on the scanner
waiting for the little beep. No sound
came from we marble statues forming the lines.
Somewhere in the store, on the floor, in a crack, a cricket chirped.
I turned to
the t’weener couple behind me.
“It’s as if
this line has not moved and will never move in our lifetime. We are like stumps standing here that need
dusting every month but other than that, we are planted here forever. It’s like this every year. When these old people come back our world
slows to a crawl. At least with this year’s
crop I haven’t heard of anyone confusing the gas for the brake.
“Just today one
of ‘em t-boned a car,” the guy stared at me grimly. “Killed him”
Impatient to move, and although I would lose my place in the line if I did, and although I would display more young punk behavior if I did, I finally bolted away to take a chance at the cosmetics counter. Mercifully, I found a young person (sixtyish) who ran me through with no “confusion” whatsoever. As agreed upon, I waved above the aisles to the t’weener couple. They raced to this haven of movement and motion, then thanked me profusely.
On to the
post office and although no new holes had been drilled through the wall in the past
week or so, the lines inside were pretty much the same crap.
Ah, ’tis the season to hurry up and creep.
_______________________________________________________
Dead On--Yep,
as mentioned above, in this morning’s paper, sure enough, an 88-year-old man
died in the above crash and his 87-year-old wife, who was driving, is near
dead. She pulled right out and t-boned a
t’weener. How do these people survive
year-round up where they stay? Or do
they? Are there such accidents
year-round in New York, Jersey, Penn, etc, involving such people? Wow, this aging of the population sure
sucks. And to think: This is just the
beginning!
_______________________________________________________
Fifty Strikes
And You’re Out—Guess at some point Florida will lose patience with Lashay Smith
of Sarasota, but apparently it ain’t got to that point yet. In his quest to enter the Guinness Book of
Records in the “Most Arrested Criminal” category, this life-long moron reached another
milestone yesterday--his 50th arrest! Now, that truly is a rap sheet "longer than your arm"--longer, perhaps, than even ten arms chopped off and lined up together.
Smith’s most
recent arrest came just seconds after his release from his then-most recent
arrest when, on his suspended license, he was warned not to get into his car and
drive away from the courthouse. Well, guess what? And, of course, the incredulous police caught and cuffed him a few blocks away.
Anyone wanna
guess how much this model American citizen has cost the rest of us to chase,
arrest, house, feed, chase, arrest, house, feed, chase, arrest, house, feed, forever and ever? Anyone wanna guess how much it has cost the rest of us to then clean up and pay for
the debris field this sorry creature has created in his miserable existence,
not to mention the 24/7 criminal war he is waging against the rest of us? No, I don’t wanna guess
either but it is certainly up there in the quintrillions of dollars.
_______________________________________________________
For those of
you who want a copy of my new true crime book, Toledo
Blade, and for those of you who’d like it before Christmas, you need to order now. I have sold a bunch of these books on here
already and just received a new box of twenty yesterday. Quickest way to get the book would be to use
my pay pal account (mtgoodrich@aol.com) and deposit $16 ($12 for the
book, $4 for postage and package). Or,
simply send $16 to me asap and I’ll shoot one your way: For foreign orders, please send $22US (postage included).
T. Goodrich
4095 N. Beach
Englewood, FL 34223
_______________________________________________________
Denise Amber Lee was an anomaly. Married at 18, a mother at
19, a settled-in housewife at 20. At a time and in a place where Florida
females her age were into tattoos, drinking and spring breaks, Denise had
invested in her husband, her children, her home. The pride of her father,
a detective with the local sheriff’s department, Denise was the girl all dad’s
dream of: Pretty, intelligent, warm, affectionate, an animal lover.
Then one afternoon in 2008 a 36-year-old stranger walked into Denise’s happy
home and everything ended. There was no hint, no warning, no clue.
In a state already numb from a string of senseless, sensational crimes, what
followed would not only shock and stun Florida, but the entire nation as
well. It was, very simply, a “random act of evil.”
“It was bad enough
that it happened at all--the horrible thing. But it was doubly shocking
for a West Florida community that no one was able to stop it. On Jan. 17,
2008, a young mother named Denise Amber Lee was abducted from her home, driven
down busy roads, winding through residential neighborhoods, in broad daylight,
screaming for her life.” -----DENNIS MURPHY,
MSNBC DATELINE
“There are crimes so
heinous, with guilt so certain, that they melt opposition to the death penalty.” -----SARASOTA (FL)
HERALD –TRIBUNE
“It just scares
people. We are drawn towards stories like this that scare us. It
could happen to anybody.” -----DEREK BYRD, DEFENSE
ATTORNEY
