In Duane Reade

Ninety-eight year-old camera.
Farmingdale, New York - July 2005

I'm not trying to compete with that other site that talks about things that have been overheard in stores around town, but this one is too good to pass up.

Last night, I went out to dinner with Tanja for her birthday. Whatever you do, don't eat at the Tagine Gallery on 9th Avenue & 40th street. It was tasty, but there was something wrong with the food. Something so very wrong with the food that I spent the train ride home sweating in a well-air conditioned car, and I had to go to Duane Reade a few minutes ago to get some sort of thermonuclear-strength stomach remedies for me and the Mrs.

In the store, was a very stressed out, angry sounding woman. She was several aisles away from the Pepto department but she was talking loud enough for everyone to hear. "Where do you keep the pregnancy tests?!" she yelled, and I could hear an employee mumble her in the right direction, which happnened to be not far from where I was clutching my gut. I can only imagine she was wandering aimlessly around near the "I Love New York" ash trays and shot glasses until she realized that wasn't quite right.

She and the man she was with, whom I assumed to be the potential father, walked past me down the aisle, and over to where the pregnancy tests were. He asked her if she knew what kind to get.

"Whatever's cheap," she said, "I gotta get a lot of them." Well, this was intriguing. He companion told her that maybe she should get something more expensive, trying to tell her that they might be more expensive, but they're probably more reliable, and safer. Safer? Well, his heart was in the right place, at least.

"No, shut up," she said, and I heard a bunch of boxes fall into the folding push cart that she brought into the store with her. "My brother said that I have to have these if I'm going to work with him, so I'm just doing what I'm told and I'm keeping it cheap. I don't give a shit either way." The walked past me and got in a checkout line.