I was at the far end of the grocery store, following the long
frozen-food trough that split the wide aisle into two lanes. It was early, and
there weren’t many people shopping at that time of morning. The pace was slow,
and still a little sleepy.
A tired looking woman on the other side of the trough squinted to
read the small print on a package of seafood as her cart began to slowly roll
away from her, toward the front of the store. Seemingly unmanned, it drifted a
surprising distance of several feet. But as I came closer, I could see that the
cart was actually being pushed by an impatient little boy of no more than 4 or
5, too small to reach the handlebar—or to even be visible from the front of his
vessel.
I chuckled at the illusion, and told his mother I’d thought her
cart was rolling off on its own. She looked over at her son. “That’s funny,”
she said, and resumed her study of the frozen scallops.
Noting the brief exchange, the boy abandoned the cart to dash to
his mother’s side. (Small as he was, even short distances meant sprinting.) Standing
not much taller than the low freezer in front of him, he gave me a quick, close
study—partly assuming the role of tiny protector, but mostly out of an instinct
for not wanting to be left out of any possible fun.
“What’s up?” He shouted to me fearlessly across the trough.
“What’s up with you?” I replied.
A bright smile bloomed across his face. Kids—particularly kids
with a lot of energy—are accustomed to having such bits of nonsense ignored entirely
by grown-ups, so my acknowledgment alone was plenty.
By then his mother had already tossed the scallops in among the
rest of her groceries and moved on. He skipped to catch up with her, climbing
aboard the side of the shopping cart and riding merrily along as they pushed
past the long procession of freezer doors.
I had everything I’d come for, so I made my way to the checkout
line. There were only a few people, but the guy ahead of me had a full cart. A
moment after I took my place in line, the little boy and his mother passed
again, and he ran to me like a long-lost friend.
“Hey,” he said, a great big trickster’s grin on his face. He
seemed to think he’d surprised me by turning up a second time.
“Hey yourself.”
“You wanna play with me?”
“Well, I’m playing ‘Waiting in Line’ right now.”
He jumped to my side and stood straight, feet together, at a kind
of attention. “Now I’m playin’ Waitin’ in Line with you.”
Unamused, his stoic mother promptly summoned him back. “Come on,
June. We’re not ready to check out yet. We still have to find a few things.”
He looked up at me, maybe hoping I’d try to convince his mother to
let him stay put.
“Junie!” She called firmly, raising her voice only slightly. “I
said, let’s go.”
Obediently, he ran to her as she pointed their cart back down an
aisle.
Ahead of me, the guy had split his groceries into three groups and
was digging for a different credit card to use for the second portion of his
purchases. There was only one cashier open, and the line behind me had begun to
lengthen.
Suddenly, the little boy came rushing back into view, halting at
the mouth of the aisle he’d just disappeared down, a few feet from the
checkstands. Once he saw he had my attention, he began dancing in place at me,
enthusiastically throwing down his own variation on the cabbage patch. He
tossed his head back and started happily chant-singing,
“Waitin’ in line...waitin’ in line….”
Until, from a distant aisle, the impatient, disembodied voice of
authority rang out:
“Junie!!”
© 2017 Wyatt Doyle, all rights reserved
Wyatt Doyle's latest book, I Need Real Tuxedo and a Top Hat!, is available now from New Texture. Buy it HERE.
