The Store Clerk

In life, no one likes to feel they're being taken advantage of, however slight the offence. Everyone likes to believe that the ones closest to them stand behind them and support them. But people sure have a funny way of showing it thought Jim.

Jim didn't like playing the role of the docile, compliant furniture store clerk, but when the ocassion did present itself Jim did rise to the occasion. Jim possessed a good work ethic and he prided himself on this fact. He reminded himself that he put his pants on one leg at a time like any other man.

At approximately 10:00am, Margaret, the store owner, unlocked the front door and they did enter the store together. Jim headed to the back of the store and Margaret went behind the counter to put away her purse and examine the receipts from the previous day. Jim switched on the lights and then set the temperature gauge. He stood surveying the store wondering what nutty concoction she would come up with for him to do this day. And a silence did befall the store. And the tedium of setting up the store occupied Jim's mind and perhaps Margaret's too.

"Do you want a dounut," she asked Jim in a loud slightly high pitched voice so he could hear her from the back of the store?

Her voice startled Jim and then a shard of light did bounce off a curio windowpane and catch Jim squarely in one eye having the effect of temporarily transporting him to another place and time. A place far away in an exotic land like North Africa. The ocean a deep blue. Him walking along a stretch of beach. A soft breeze caressing his face.

Jim steadied himself on the ochre colored dinette chair and replied to her: "Yes, I'll have one dounut, thank you."