A$$ Hardware

Today I had to go to the hardware store get some gas for the lawnmower, some superglue and a little notebook to write down weird stuff like this. I didn’t go into the store for a notebook, but I had to pick one up. The hardware store was playing progressive rock which is highly unusual. It is not my genre, but I don’t go to the hardware store to listen to music. I went up to pay and I gave my phone number to the clerk in charge. The number has been with the hardware store for probably going on 15 years. I have no idea why they have my number. The reward program accrues no benefits to my knowledge. I may have received a free paint stirrer at one time. I use it to draw straight lines. As you may have deduced, I am not a hardware store kind of guy.

I spoke my phone number nice and slow, and the clerk at the counter asked me if I was Mark and I responded yes. He did mispronounce my last name. At least that felt normal. He said somebody else is using that phone number and I asked who that would be.

He said it belongs to someone named, Alex Goodwrench. Imade up the name because I don’t want the person whose name is on it to come seek me out. We tried to keep the identity of the guilty secret.

The clerk asked me, should I just delete him I said, “why not?”

And that he did.

And somewhere someplace Alex was walking down the street, quizzically holding a paint stirrer. He was with his girlfriend on this rainy day. His bride to be, was visibly upset with him. She covertly flipped him the finger while pushing the hair out of her eyes. She was mad because he was incapable of making an honest living. They had the same argument repeatedly. He just gave a waitress a one-dollar tip on a thirty-dollar breakfast and tried to convince her it was fifteen percent.

“What does she know about math?”

She was fed up with him as he was full of shit. Just earlier he shoplifted some gasoline, for their lawnmower, from the hardware store.

Back at the hardware store the young clerk hit delete and told me the account should be good now.

There just two blocks away Alex took a long drag of his cigarette and simply disappeared. Some bystanders claimed he spontaneously combusted.

His girlfriend doesn’t miss him much.