Dull is Good...

by Valerie Mann

Man, do I live a dull life. And I mean that in a good way. For all of my snarky comments and sarcastic, the-glass-is-always-half-empty view of life, I look at this as a positive. I may boo hoo like Rosie the Robot from the Jetsons—oh please, you do too know who I’m talking about—but it’s okay. Someone has to play Eeyore to your Pollyanna (Holy pop culture, Batman! How many more fictional characters can I squeeze into a paragraph?).

So, today I was at my local Target, shopping for movie candy (for an evening video date with the hubster) and other odds and ends, like Valentine stuff, toilet paper and whatever else Target can lure into my cart, because we all know you never go into Target or Walmart for one thing, without winding up with a cartload of crap you didn't know you needed, but realized you can't live without.

I'm not even ten feet in the store and I hear a booming, "I just want to pay for my f**king stuff!". Queue the rabbit ears and about face. Three men are wrassling a man into submission...okay, they're trying to wrassle him, but he's wearing them like a bad fur coat. He's swinging them around, they're holding on tight, crashing into cash registers and the tobacco/baby formula/condom lockup (because that's the stuff that should be under lock and key), and generally bringing the entire front half of the   Tar-jay to a shocked, rubbernecking standstill.

This guy did NOT want to go down. Darn it, all he wanted to do was pay for his f**king stuff. Why wouldn't they let him? *snicker* Anyway, I'm thinking here's a fella who's more worried about what happens if he goes down, rather than what he's done. Which means (a) he's got a criminal record and this silly misdemeanor means a whole lot more than a stolen CD/six-pack/earrings for his girlfriend, or whatever it was he palmed, or (b) he's innocent. 

Yeah.

Our local Barney Fife shows up (slipped another fic character in when you weren't looking) and cuffs the poor guy. I look down and realize I've got crap in my cart that I didn't even realize I'd put in there, so distracted was I. The store returned to normal, I paid for my f**king stuff (because I'm good that way and I'm allergic to handcuffs of all kinds, even fur-lined) and left, having been both entertained and shaken. And drove away. 

And thought, "I like my dull life. I really do." Interesting is a relative term. Living an interesting life, like the one that poor guy is facing right now, is way more drama than I care to have. I appreciate my boring, free life, where my complaints are minor, if a bit snarky. I'll take it!