Yesterday I needed to take some long-unused clothing to the DI (Deseret Industries. Whatever problems the LDS church has with other issues, it handles welfare and job training for its members and many others very well, hiring and training refugees, the physically and mentally handicapped, the recently homeless, etc. The DI is a chain of second-hand stores where many of these people get work experience. It's also a great place to find craft items, costume pieces, and used books.), and naturally I wanted to go inside and hunt through their books as well. (Just because I have overflowing shelves and stacks of books doesn't mean that I don't want MORE books!) So, after I unloaded my sacks of tee shirts unworn for a decade or so, I pulled the car around into the parking lot.
As I pulled into a space, I noticed a 20-something African-American boy (I'd say "man," but he was acting like an overgrown 8th grader, so "boy" seems more fitting.) tucking something under a red car parked on the other side of the grass divider from me. He looked guilty as he saw me, then he scowled defiantly -- as if he knew this teacher would disapprove -- hitched up his saggy gangpants, and swaggered his way into the store.
"What a punk!" I thought. "There's a trash can only 20 feet away! He had to pass it to get to the door!"
When I got out of my car, I glanced toward the red car, expecting to find a fast-food sack, but it was a T-Mobile sack with an opened box poking out of it.
Weird. Had he stolen a phone then tried to hide the evidence? No, if he'd stolen it, he wouldn't have a sack.
I seriously considered picking up the sack and taking it to the trash, but I didn't, for bending over at that angle would have hurt my back.
However, when I went inside the store --- which isn't all that huge, and which is nothing more than a big box, with no nooks in which to hide -- he was gone. He must've gone out an employee exit.
I spent the next 20 minutes choosing Agatha Christie paperbacks. But after I'd paid, I remembered the punk kid and the T-Mobile bag, so I looked for the trash.
The red car was gone, another was parked in its place, and the T-Mobile sack was gone -- although there were a few other garbage items left by other piglets kicking around within the surrounding 20 feet or so, which let me know that no custodial crew had come by to pick up.
Had some customer picked up his trash? Or was it not trash? Was he not really a punk kid, but perhaps a drug dealer leaving a stash for someone? Or maybe he was a spy?
Yes, he was probably a punk kid, but there may be a story here in the making. :D
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