Listen

I wasn't going to write about this but then I stumbled onto a short film this morning and thought, well maybe I should (video at the end).

The rule is, whomever does not have the wee one runs the errands after work. Usually that means me. So I call just as I am shutting down for the day to see if the wife needs me to fetch and carry.

Yesterday the wife apologetically asked if I could run by the supermarket for baby food. Seems she had been running errands all day herself but Annabelle was finished before the errands were. "No prob", I said and headed for the market near my office.

As I walked in one end of the store, I couldn't help but notice an extraordinarily good looking woman dressed all in skintight black. The market near my office is one of the closest to the university as well so it is not uncommon for it to be bustling with good looking, in shape men and women but this caught my eye. She was talking to 3 other gals all dressed in skintight black as well, they all had some sort of white writing down the sides of their spandex pants. That's when one of the gals noticed me and said in a perky voice, "Would you like to try Activa?" or some such thing. Turns out that they were shilling for the latest flavored water product.

It occurred to me these gals all had to try out for this job, that they were chosen, in part, because of their appearance and here they were decked out in spandex from head to toe hawking their wares in the supermarket. They weren't friends, they were co-workers - thrown together in skin tight costumes to bat their eyes and woo customers. I wondered if any of them were standing there thinking, "How did I end up here?" I wonder what the story is there . . .

I completed my treasure hunt for all the right jars in the baby food aisle and passed by the meat counter. There was a tall good looking man chatting with the butcher while his order was being wrapped up. The butcher wanted to know; "Do you have kids?"

"Three", the man said.

"Boys or girls?"

"Two girls and a boy"

"Wife?"

"She died".

"Oh, I'm sorry," the butcher stammered.

The good-looking man had a far-off gaze and he said flatly, "She died this past September", as if he was delivering the news to himself.

Jeepers, I thought to myself. This is their first Christmas without her . . . You would never know just passing him in the checkout line . . .

I paid for my groceries and headed out the other end of the store and there was a fresh-faced coed in a red Salvation Army apron so new it still had the creases. She was ringing the bell next to her Kettle and on the apron it said something to the effect, "Become a bell-ringer, Ask me how". Here was a college gal, ringing a Salvation Army bell on a Friday night in the rain. There must be a story there . . . I thought . . .

It was no longer raining as I walked to my car but the parking lot was glistening wet - like all the roadways in movies. I thought to myself, "This looks like one of those movie sets and, in a way, all of us are actors playing our parts. My character interacts with their characters - all the while we miss the story of real life lying just under the surface."

Here's the link to the film: Part 1