Thanks A Lot, Easter Target.

This is what I get for not observing Easter; strangers talking to me.

I headed out to Target today. I have 3 rolls of film to develop and our home also needed some of those boring-to-buy but very necessary things. I will use any excuse to go to Target. Just as C.

I drive Target and ...IT IS CLOSED. Ooooh yeah. Easter and junk.

So I go to the grocery store near our home as an alternative. I get all my items and go to the register. The lady working the register is visibly ill with the flu or something, so she literally looks beaten. The woman in front of me with her double wide baby shuttle is explaining to everyone that the two occupants are "Only 11 months a part...do you see what a bottle of wine will get you?"

This scene brings some other store employee - who I think is a manager of some kind - to our area. Manager lady has a giant pair of fuzzy green rabbit ears on. She's talking to the mom, the kids, the other workers.....nobody is moving and my stuff has already been rung up. I'm not in a hurry or annoyed with the blockage. I AM annoyed that the mother wants to tell everyone about her children conceived of wine, but other than that I can wait.

Finallly I get clearance and pay for my stuff. Big Green Bunny Ear lady looks directly at me, at my t-shirt, and says "What a CUTE shirt!" I mumbled "thank you" in a tiny voice and left the store.

See, it's not that some stranger made a comment on my shirt. I'm not THAT skittish. The thing that gets me is that this particular t-shirt is nowhere near cute. There's a long story associated with the phrase "speed monkeys" and the logo of monkeys with coffee cups which is on it. Also, I've cut the collar out of it because I hate t-shirt collars. I didn't do a clean job of the cutting, either. I never do.

I guess I was just afraid I'd have to explain to her that this t-shirt contains the name of my imaginary band - Speed Monkeys - which was born of a rapid fire e-mail exchange between C and two of our friends. One of those friends came up with the t-shirts later that day.

This is why I prefer Target. Target is usually filled with shoppers as anti-social as I am. The only kind of stranger communication I experience there is the poke of their shopping cart into the back of my shins because they aren't looking where they are going or a new checkstand is opened and the race to get there first begins.