Time Bandits
I have, on many occaissions, passed by one of the Garrett's Popcorn Shops in the Loop and seen the winding cue that crowds the store and wondered whether any popcorn could be worth such a time consuming ordeal. But, it turns out, if the consumption of time is your aim, then it is less an ordeal than a grace.
I had just left the Harold Washington Library after having returned an overdue copy of Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, which i had completed weeks ago, but subsequently loaned to my mom, with whom the book languished a bit before being perused interminably resulting in its belated return. It was 2:25. Too late to make the 2:30 train home and nearly an hour away from the 3:20. Usually my timing is better, but i lingered past a temporal threshold in the library trying in vain to evoke a title or topic that would spark an immediate interest, and i left earlier than i would have if i had been searching the shelves. I left empty handed and needed to waste some time.
I was drawn toward Walgreens by a faint desire, but could not, when it mattered most, remember that i needed pens and batteries. Again i left empty handed. With 40 minutes still left to waste, I could stop at Crow's Nest, but then i would have to face my own frustrating equivocation over musical choices. Instead i went into Garrett's and found a place in line behind a charmingly chatty mother and daughter. Patrons continued to fill in behind me as the line, constantly in motion but never changing shape, twisted its way through the tiny corner shop. There were two people working in the store at the time. When I reached the counter, the woman working the register had gone in the back to prepare more carmel popcorn. The other employee weighed and packaged my popcorn, but it was apparently not within his power to operate the cash register. He did the same for the woman behind me. Still, neither of us had paid. We waited. When he went in the back to get assistance, i turned to the woman behind me in line. "Let's make a run for it," i said. But she was not interested. And anyway the store was too crowded to make a speedy getaway. So i continued to await the return of the woman who possesed the mystical power to operate the cash register. That's okay. I had time to kill.
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