Box Store
a box store isn't where they sell boxes. it's where they sell stuff they bought "in volume" and marked up only as far as the stuff would look cheap. i go to one of these stores. it's where retail items get one last chance, like habitual felons. i buy two bars of Cashmere Bouquet soap there because i need soap and i've liked that name for decades and it's a two-word surrealistic poem. the husband of the woman in front of me in line to pay, he's disabled. he leans on one cart while she unloads the other. they're around 40. she hands him his retractable cane, then unloads 2 rugs, 9 bags of gerbil food, and 10 boxes of cereal. as the cashier shoots the items with his laser-gun, he says to the other cashier, "when do we get help?" the woman in line ahead of me to pay says, "are you hiring?" the cashier does not look at her and says, "we just hired some people. there's an application over there." i watch the disabled husband. he keeps his game face. he refuses to look ashamed. he looks out but not down. i think he was hurt on the job. badly. like his leg is permanently wrong. he still wears the jacket with the label of his company. his hair is neatly trimmed. the cashier says, "will that be credit or debit?" the husband says, "debit."
hans ostrom 2019
