“Excuse me, are you Janet’s daughter? …um, Janet Kerns?”
“Ya! …You know my mom?”
“I do, I do, I work with her.”
“Oh, okay… and how’d you know me? Did we meet before?”
“No, no, I huh, recognized you… I mean, she has a few pictures of you around her desk at work. She and I bullshit a lot and I noticed them from time to time. I guess I just don’t forget a face.”
“Ya, I should say not.”
“What was your name again?”
“Phyllis.”
“That’s right ya…wait…Phyllis? Really? You don’t look like a ‘Phyllis’.”
“I know, I know… it’s such an old lady name. I like it, but every time I tell people my name – like over the phone – I feel like they picture me sitting in an easy chair knitting a hat for one of my many cats.”
“…Or at a dinner, putting your pencil back in your beehive after you just took someone’s patty-melt order!”
“Ya, or at a diner, ya! That’s funny! Well what’s your name?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“WHY!? It can’t be worse than Phyllis! ...it’s not Wendell is it? …or Russell? I don’t trust anyone named Russell!”
“I have a cousin named Russell! He’s a snake! No, it’s not Wendell or Russell; it’s Camper.”
“Oh. My. God.”
“Ya.”
“You’re serious?”
“Ya.”
“Oh. My. God.”
“Ya, bad, I know.”
“I feel like I should dig out my cell phone from my purse and call your parents with the one eternal question I’m certain you have been chewing on for, like, ever: Why?!”
“Ya, I know – it’s bad. Apparently they enjoyed their trips to the Big Sur a great deal prior to my coming along, so the name was rather apropos I guess”
“I’d say so!”
“I use ‘Camper’ for bank accounts and driver’s licenses renewals… Cam’s what I go by.”
“I like Cam… I like Camper too, to be quite honest, but Cam’s also nice.”
“Well, thanks! So, Phyllis, are you shopping for anything in particular?”
“umm… What’dya mean?”
“Wait, that was dumb – you’re in a grocery store – I should’ve just asked if you ‘come here often?’ That’d been even better! Sorry.”
“Nope. Perfectly alright! It wasn’t the best ‘line’ but it was matter-of-fact!”
“Jesus... I think I’m nervous.”
“I’m actually buying this birthday bag and this candy bar. You?”
“a strange combination Phyllis! You’re giving the candy bar to someone?”
“No, rather, I bought a girlfriend a birthdays gift and I had no wrapping paper, but birthday bags are the new wrapping paper. The candy bar, well, he’s my date for tonight: Netflix and a Butterfinger. I’m stoked.”
“Thoughtful cynicism! I love it! …I’m here for beer. But not just any beer, that’d be too logical. I’m here for this $18 six pack of some strange micro brew out of Oregon. Micro brews are the new indie-fill-in-the-blank!”
“$18?!”
“Ya. It tastes pretty good…umm, accordingly to the yuppie be-like-me guy who wrote the article in Rolling Stone last month anyway.”
“I see.”
“So Netflix and Birthday present bag filling huh?”
“Yaaap. Good times – watch out for the burst of excitement!”
“Well, I generally only drink about three of these before the bitterness starts to wear on me……. I’d have three extra??”
“Interesting. Well, I’ve yet to fund a Butterfinger that WASN’T broken in two while still in the wrapper…. That’d make two nearly equal parts??”
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