Attention K-Mart Shoppers

Now, I know that Zirk's Irks is my forum for my personal events, but there is a story that is so wonderful, it bears sharing with a larger audience.  In keeping with my own life experience, it is a story of youth, good intentions, and good intentions gone horribly wrong.

My brother, while he was in college, had a part-time job working at K-Mart.  It wasn't that he sought this particular job out.  It was inevitable that someone in our family would end up working at K-Mart, since they built one directly across the street from the house we grew up in.  Literally.  Across the street.  The story of when they constructed it is the subject for another Irks.  That is a tale of suburban development, of the loss of childhood innocence, and the awakening of a nascent environmental awareness . . . but I digress.

If you ask politely, he'll gladly ramble off their theme song of capitalism:

"Attention, K-Mart shoppers!  For the next 5 minutes you will see the blue light flashing back in the Garden Department where we will have six-foot decorative ficus trees on sale for only $19.99!  Please be sure to head back to the Garden Department and take advantage of this blue-light special, and as always, thank you for shopping at K-Mart!"


My brother worked in the Garden Department, but knew the entire store layout.  Being young and helpful, he noticed a shopper one day wandering back and forth, looking down the aisles forlornly.

"Is there anything I can help you find, ma'am?" he offers.

Sheepishly, he leans in and responds. "I was wondering if you could tell me where I could find the tacks."

Since the Hardware Department was adjacent to the Garden Department, he knew exactly where they were.  Wanting to hone her search ever further, he inquires, "The kind you push in with your thumb, or the kind you hit with a hammer?"  

His arm flails back and forth, miming the action of hammering.

No sooner did he say this when two things happened simultaneously.  All the color drained from the shopper’s stunned face.  And my brother's over-eager synapses caught up and processed what the shopper had really asked for.  

She wasn't looking for thumbtacks.  She was looking for Tampax.

Realizing the error of his initial response, he blurts out, "They're a few aisles over, near the Pharmacy!" and beat an hasty retreat.

He never did find out which particular ones she needed.  He assumed that a hammer would not be necessary.  But he could tell her where they were.  If she wanted.