A Day in the Unlife Read online

  *****

  I hummed the theme to Shaft as I hung out in the line at Wal-Mart with nothing but a gallon of water and a big cardboard container of salt in my cart.

  Nobody looked at me funny. The guy in front of me had nothing but vodka and chocolate chips, the woman behind me had nothing but orange juice and tampons. We are, all of us, equal at Wal-Mart.

  The checkout lady did chuckle at my purchase, but in a good natured way so I didn't punch her. “Makin' your own ocean?”

  “Nah. Fightin' zombies.” I said by way of explanation. She chuckled again and rang me up.

  “Oh, you're fighting zombies? Me too!” Said the old man two spots behind me in line. He appeared to be buying twenty pairs of socks.

  “Is that so?” I asked. I mean, it was possible, after all. You never knew.

  “The zombies,” he said in a conspiratorial tone, “Came outta the holes in my yard. Disguised as gophers, they were, but I knew better! That's why I'm gettin' these socks, to protect myself from their mind control rays!”

  “I thought it was tin foil that protects from mind control?” I asked, more out of morbid fascination than genuinely expecting to get a logical answer at this point. It was like watching a train wreck, over and over, forever.

  “Ha! That's just what the zombies want you to think,” the man said.

  And that is why I love Wal-Mart. There is no better place to see the human condition in action.