Darke County Update #3

[Editor’s note: Some portions of the following could possibly be true.] [Or not.]

Best place for free exercise in Greenville is our large indoor mall. It’s got miles and miles of aisles. In fact, I’ll bet one lap around the inside is probably close to 3.1 miles—the equivalent of a 5k. Only problem is if you jog instead of walk you run the risk of bowling over shoppers. Besides, you’ll probably get stuck behind some little old lady with a slow cart. But still—it’s indoors and a lot nicer than running out in the weather.

Wait a minute, you object. Greenville doesn’t have an indoor shopping mall!

Sure it does. Right across the street from Krogers. If you squint your eyes just right, it sort of looks like one. If you squint a little harder, the sign kind of looks like “Mallmart” if you use just a tad of imagination. And it surely has the same outdoor features: massive parking lot with all the spaces near the entrance already taken, cars prowling around racing each other for spots recently abandoned by shoppers leaving, the obligatory eighteen-wheelers idling on the perimeter, an occasional pickup truck camper staying in the same place for two weeks.

And then on the inside, just think of the different departments as individual little stores. When you think about it, hard enough, it’s just like an indoor mall. Big enough for one, certainly.

Yeah, well, if it’s a mall where's the food court?

Cookie aisle, of course.

So anyway, I was at Mallmart doin’ my laps when I ran into Wilson. Literally. I was trying to jog the straight stretch between the Hunting Store and the Shoe Store. Poor Wilson popped out from the Seasonal Aisle and I sort of knocked him over, his cart over, and some guy I didn’t know. Bread and milk went flying, but thankfully the milk didn’t burst open. The stranger’s fall was broken by Wilson’s five loaves of bread—good for him. Not so good for the bread. Sorta flattened it.

Anyway, after apologizing profusely and picking up the stranger (who was more than a little agitated at me, not sure why) and getting Wilson set back on his feet, I tried to make a joke: “Fancy running into you here, Wilson.” He didn’t laugh, just kinda glared at me as he picked up his squashed bread. “So, what’s with all the bread and milk?” I asked.

“Snow storm coming,” he grumbled.

“You planning on eating all five loaves by yourself?” Wilson is a confirmed life-long bachelor. Tends to the cantankerous side, which could explain his single sojourn.

“Just want to be ready,” he muttered as he retrieved the four gallon jugs of milk.

“The forecast is for flurries, Wilson. I don’t think you’re gonna get snowed in.”

“You never know. So what are you getting ready for, the Olympics?” he asked sarcastically, eyeing my running shoes.

“Nah. The Ansonia Firecracker,” I answered.

“That’s six months away, genius. Don’t you think you could wait a month or two and run outside when the weather’s better, rather than knocking people over in here?”

“Just want to be ready,” I said, winking at him. “Well, I’d better, you know,  run along.”

“Maybe you oughta walk,” he said over his shoulder as he pushed his cart toward the snow shovel store in Mallmart..

And that’s the news from Greenville.