I was standing innocently at the checkout
counter at a huge grocery store in chicago (omni I think)
sometime in 1994 - and I started to
poke through those little books they hope you will buy
impulsively to rectify some part of
your life that might be a mess. In this case it was a little
tome called "Getting Organized" which
must have appealed to my scatterbrained self.
Boy was I surprised!
The cover was unseemly enough...
but the back cover should have tipped
me off... should I have examined it.
I normally flip through a book first
and then look at the back.
the golden age? control of nature? cold
cuts?
Upon further inspection - opening the
book up randomly - I started squirming in my socks...
madness! some kook had gone through
the trouble to make this book and then
place it in racks in the supermarket!
and it was good stuff!
I was in love - a random act of art
in the unlikeliest place. It was then I realized
that I could never let the cashier
try and find a bar code on this thing - lest store management
be alerted and my new found treasure
be confiscated and labeled "exhibit A." My
sheepish grin quickly disappeared.
So what did I do? why I shoplifted it
of course! Oh the guilt - oh the thrill! After I had
paid for my legumes and whatnot after
pocketing the book I even had the nerve to go around
to all of the other checkout lanes
- of which there were about 20 - and rifle through
the racks. Alas, no others were
to be found. I wish you could read it too... all 32 pages of
it.
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