Yesterday we stopped at Fred Meyer in Florence to pick up a few ingredients for last night’s crab enchiladas: avocados, tortillas, sour cream and cilantro and half and half for the white sauce, and a bottle of A to Z pinot gris.
We brought our items up to the front and headed for the closest checkstand with a light on. There was no checker there, but there was a woman standing out past the National Enquirer stands just hanging out, like she was waiting for customers.
I said “Are you here?” and motioned to her checkstand. We made funny conversation about how she may or may not really be there. She was fairly good-humored, but it was extremely clear that she did not want to be there and was counting the minutes until she could leave.
She rang up our items and as she put the bottle of wine in a plastic bag, the bag split down the middle. She grumbled about the bag’s thinness and sat the bottle of wine behind her as she reached for another plastic bag.
As she reached for the new bag, she tipped the bottle of wine off the edge of the back counter. It was one of those slow motion things…I saw her knock the bottle, then turn around, then I watched the bottle as it fell to the floor. It landed squarely and perfectly on the cushy standing mat in her station, about 6 inches from her feet. I thought “Whew! Nice that it had a cushy spot to land and didn’t break.” She stood there for what seemed like 10 seconds (but was probably more like 3…but certainly there was a delay) and then she yelled out in pain as if the bottle had landed on her foot (which it did not). She immediately (like, within milliseconds!) picked up the phone and called someone to tell them she dropped a bottle of wine on her foot and they needed to come relieve her. She was hopping up and down on one foot as our new checker came up, calmly told her to go ahead and go to the bathroom, look at her foot or do whatever she needed to do…as if this kind of thing happened frequently. Which I’m sure it does.
As Kevin and I walked back out to the Airstream with our groceries, we compared notes. He saw the same exact thing I did. So funny. So obvious.
