Apologies to No Frills

As I write this at Denny’s restaurant there is a group of young people leaving the table beside mine. One (or possibly more) of them were continually belching out loud. Every now and then I have to dig deep and reaffirm that I believe the human race is worth saving.


I’ve had a lot of fun over the last two years poking fun at the Bristol-and-Creditview No Frills store and their customers. I’ve gone so far as to call it the Galactic Centre of Ignorance on occasion. Not very kind, I know. Not very enlightened. But fun. It’s always great fun to bitch, isn‘t it? The best things in life are free.

Yesterday, on my way to Strat-o, I stopped at the much fancier and dancier Real Canadian Superstore to pick up a case of pop and some prepared fried chicken from the hot section.

They had a bit of a line-up going on. At the check-out I dropped one of those cool separator bars onto the belt between my fried chicken and the goodies being purchased by the fellow in front of me and dropped another behind my case of pop so that the woman behind me in line, draped in her furs, would feel free to add her items to the belt. A lot of people don’t seem to know what those bars are for. Well, that’s what their for. I wouldn’t lie to you about something like that.

Oddly, the woman in fur would not begin placing her items down until I was finally paying for mine. Perhaps I smelled bad. Maybe I’d stepped in dog poop and didn’t know it. Or maybe she follows some one-customer-on-the-belt-at-a-time rule on advice from her priest or something. Who knows?

But as I was picking up my goodies to leave she pushed her cart into me. Not a problem. Didn’t hurt. She didn’t apologize. Odd, I thought but also not a problem. I paused a second to get a proper grip on the case of pop and she ran the cart into my leg again. This time I looked directly at her. She looked away, saying nothing.

“Sorry about that,” I said. “I’ll be out of your way in a second.”

She glanced at me and looked away again. I went on my merry way.

Mysterious behaviour, I thought. On my home planet I was taught that when one person hits another person it is the hitter, not the hittee, who apologizes. But hey, who am I to preach tradition, right?

Maybe she has a cougarish streak and this was some odd manner of flirting. Or maybe I was on Candid Camera and I left before they had a chance to drop the bucket of pig’s blood on me. Or maybe she just wanted me to pay for the sins of all the men in her life. Maybe I got off easy.

Do you have any theories?

Maybe she was a princess in her former country and she was taught that all her mistakes are automatically someone else’s fault. Or maybe she saw my fried chicken and forgot it’s not 1950 and didn’t like my being in the white line. I really hope that’s not it.


There is now a new group of young people at the table beside mine here at Denny‘s. One of them tried to order a fur burger. The waiter offered a polite laugh. The next kid, not to be outdone, ordered a pussy supreme with extra pussy. Part of me is jealous that I never thought of something that clever back when I was young and a moron. The other part of me thinks it might be real nice if humans were confined to the North Pole and industrialized polar bears were down here fucking us out of existence.