David Witter

It's Memorial Day at the Home Depot on Elston and half of Lincoln Park is wandering the aisles and filling their carts with flats of hostas, inpatients and tomato plants named Health Kick and Golden Boy. It's the picture of a rather pleasant spring shopping scene, up until the checkout line. Looking back from the temporary outdoor registers, a line stretches to the Chicago River.

A Home Depot employee who has been watering the plants announces, "There is no waiting in aisles four and five inside the store." She puts down her watering wand and approaches a young couple. "Sir," she says to a man wearing khakis and a Cubs hat, "there is no waiting inside." He looks at her quizzingly. "Yes, but then I'll lose my place in line."

She shrugs and approaches another woman. "Ma'am, there is no waiting if you want to move inside." The woman looks up at her from behind her jungle of plants and says, "This register is closer to my car."

Perplexed, she goes back to her watering. In the meantime, I have moved into the building, through a two-person line, and am ready to leave when I decide to check on the woman who was in front of me. She has moved up, but there are still at least twenty-five people between her and checkout.

"Missus," the same employee beckons to the woman, "there is no waiting inside." The woman, who bears a slight resemblance to Angela Lansbury, looks at her and says, "This is the plants and garden line. That is the line for tools."

(2005-06-09)

Also by David Witter

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Last of the Slaughterhouses
Over the last 75 years, Chiappetti Lamb and Veal has survived competition from the giants like Armour and Swift, the closing of the Chicago stockyards, and major changes in the American diet
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Paint by numbers
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The Death of Neon
They were once considered an urban blight, an offense to all decent Americans
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Take me to the river
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A moll meal
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Steel stomachs
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Young Turks
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BAR NONE
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BRAIN MATTERS
(2001-01-11)

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