Two tee-shirts at Lowe’s
It’s midday on a Sunday. I live in west Houston and I had just driven over to the local Lowe’s hardware store to buy a new mailbox. Someone had decided to slam their car into my old one late Friday night and the mailman complained to me on Saturday.
I’m thinking that my whole investment at Lowe’s should be less than ten bucks for a plastic mailbox and the small piece of wood I need to mount it on my old mail post.
I walk into the store and ask the first employee I see: “Mailboxes?” A model of efficiency: short and to the point don’t you think?
She gives me a funny look and rolls her eyes back inside her head like she’s looking for the answer. It takes maybe thirty seconds until she finally says, “Aisle seventeen.”
Great, I’m at aisle one. I was hoping to do this whole shopping spree in less time than it took for her to answer and now I gotta walk all the way across the store.
I’m a fast walker but it still takes more than a minute to get to aisle seventeen. I turn and walk quickly to where the mailboxes are when behind me I hear, “Oh, sir, can you come here a second? I want to show you what my husband is wearing.”
Now there’s something I didn’t expect to hear when I entered this store.
I’m confused, a little, but I walk back toward the attractive 30-something brunette. She’s at the end of the aisle pointing towards her husband who’s two aisles down. When I reach the end of the aisle she says, “look at his tee-shirt. It’s the same as yours.”
Well, I look at his and then I have to look at mine. I’m a guy; I haven’t a clue what shirt I picked out this morning.
Turns out I’m wearing a Portsmouth Brewery souvenir tee-shirt I picked up last December when I was visiting my son in New Hampshire. That guy two aisles down, the husband of the lady standing next to me, is wearing the same souvenir shirt in the same color.
“It’s his favorite shirt,” says the wife. “He won’t let me throw it away even though it’s old and faded. He just loves their beer and that shirt!”
I wave to him. We both seem a little bit embarrassed by the whole matter.
“Hmm. I was just there a few months ago. My son lives up there.”
I walk back to the mailboxes wondering if there’s any cosmic significance to it all.
The Portsmouth Brewery
56 Market Street
Portsmouth NH 03801
(603) 431-1115
www.portsmouthbrewery.com
