KMart

[Martin Hash]

No one has ever accused me of being a slave to fashion. I'm not particularly influenced by a store's attempts to position itself as upscale. Higher prices for pretentious atmosphere is not my style, but my kids do not share my enthusiasm for KMart.

"Dad, I need new shoes."

"Here's twenty bucks."

"Dad, I can't buy shoes for $20!"

"Sure you can: there's a whole selection at Kmart."

My wife, Gwynne, recently threw away our old cheese grater after twenty years. Buying something new at our house is a big event. My family piled into the van for a trip to the mall.

"Mom," asked my 10-year old son, Haven. "Why are we going to the mall to buy a cheese grater?"

"Because they don't have cheese graters at Safeway," I butt in.

"Dad's going to go to KMart," opines my daughter, Heather, despondently.

"While we're there, we could look at shoes." I respond cheerfully.

As of late, KMart is starting to get a little frazzled around the edges. The stores are looking a little ragged and the incompetence of their checkers is becoming legendary. Though I am quite familiar with the store layout, I cannot seem to find the cheese graters. As a man, I'm loath to ask for help, but eventually my daughter asks a clerk. Not unusual for KMart, the employee must be a recent immigrant to this country who doesn't understand my daughter's soft voice and whose response is so accented that we all just look at each other and shrug.

In the "Kitchen Utensils" section, knowing we're close, my son asks some customers if they've seen the cheese graters. Unfortunately, they must be visiting from far away because they don't understand what we are saying at all.

Eventually we find the cheese graters and head to the front of the store. Abruptly Heather stops.

"Whoa," she says.

Ahead of us are 15 checkout lines - 9 of them closed. The other 6 are ten deep in customers. They all seem frozen in time - not a person moves. We look around us helplessly: the Return counter has a line of people buying groceries; the lawn and garden counter is packed by someone buying bedding. My wife looks at me angrily, puts the cheese grater on an end-display made of Ritz Cracker boxes (already covered with other disgruntled potential customer's discarded detritus), and heads out the door. Me and the kids have to jog to catch up. No one says a word, but before we can make it to the van, we are accosted by a young woman in the parking lot desperate for money. "I only need $8 to pay the rest of the rent for a roof over my baby's head," she pleads.

I hurriedly unlock the van door, eyes straight ahead: she's still staring at us through the windshield. Even before the kids buckle up, I frantically back out of my parking space. We drive home in silence.

Working on my computer at home I overhear a conversation between Haven and my oldest son, Heath, who didn't go on the abortive expedition with us. "Dad says we don't have to go to KMart no more," says Haven.

"What happened?" asks Heath.

"We tried to buy a cheese grater but there was an old man buying orange juice at the jewelry counter and the only person who spoke English was the beggar."