Am I Right or Am I Right? Read Online Free PDF Page B

started unpacking and stacking cans of baked beans.
    I hadn’t got very far with this fascinating and skilled activity when there was a bronchitic cough behind me and a shopping cart slammed into my ankles. Has that ever happened to you? Trust me, it is the most painful thing in the world. Carts are designed that way. I imagine a mad scientist somewhere saying to a white-coated colleague,
Right. We have three standard wheels and the fourth is operated by a microchip programmed to randomly choose directions at right angles to the intended trajectory. We have the child seat that traps your fingers. What else? I know—how about positioning the front bumper bar so it causes permanent disability when rammed into ankles?
    I hobbled to my feet, suppressing the temptation to scream a four-letter word beginning with
f
and ending with
uck
at the top of my voice.
    A little old lady was beaming at me. She was vertically challenged to the extent that her wrinkled face just peeped over the cart’s handle. It was unnerving.
    “I’m so sorry, dear,” she said.
    “I suspect you are not as sorry as I am,” I replied. “Might I also suggest that penitence is not generally accompanied by a wide grin?”
    “Pardon?” she said.
    “What can I do for you?” I asked, rubbing my ankles. The pain had subsided, so it only felt like red-hot darning needles were being inserted into my Achilles tendons.
    “Where do you keep your condoms?”
    I forgot the pain instantly. Who wouldn’t? My jaw dropped, and a range of replies raced through my mind.
On my boyfriend’s willie
was the best, but I didn’t say it, and not just because I didn’t have a boyfriend. With an effort of will, I cranked my lower jaw back up.
    “They’re for my grandson,” she continued. “He wants knobbly ones that glow in the dark.”
    “Just possibly too much information,” I said, “but if you come with me, we’ll try to find them.”
    I
knew
I was going to love this job. I’d only been working half an hour and it was well worth the forty cents I must have earned. If this was going to happen regularly, I’d have paid
them
for the opportunity to work here. Imagine the material I would have for my writer’s notebook! If I had one. True, my happiness was dented slightly by the old lady ramming me with the cart again in exactly the same place, but I no longer felt the urge to viciously strike her to the floor.
    “I’m so sorry,” she said again.
    “If you’re so sorry,” I said, “why do you keep doing it?”
    But there was no real anger in my voice. I left her happily poring over the merits of strawberry-flavored Rough Riders and limped back to the baked beans.
    I was debating the artistic merits of pyramid displays as opposed to the space-saving yet rather conventional rectangular stack system (who said this job wasn’t going to be stimulating?) when another customer behind me coughed and said, “Excuse me?” I tell you, it’s an occupational hazard when you’re a shelf stacker. People sneak up on you. I got up and turned around.
    My father was standing there.
    Fact File
    Common name:
Robert Harrison
    Scientific name: Baldus shortarsius
    Habitat:
This noxious creature is not, as one might reasonably expect, found under slimy stones, but is liable to appear in any environment when you least expect it. Prefers warm climates but is unable to provide for itself and thus attaches itself to any available host body, where it will cling unpleasantly and eventually empty the refrigerator.
    Mating habits:
Despite its unprepossessing appearance,
Baldus shortarsius
is apparently sexually attractive to deranged members of its own species. It mates and moves on quickly, effectively diluting its own gene pool. This is worrying since the pool was little more than a puddle in the first place.
    Appearance:
Short, stumpy, and follicularly challenged.
    Toxicity:
Close contact is not fatal, though debilitating symptoms might persevere for years. Best avoided unless