Bless Your
Oblivious Heart

Somebody suggested grocery stores hire aisle officials. You stand in the middle of the aisle visiting with an old friend, you get a fine. Five dollars, and it goes up every time you do it.

I'm not saying I'd vote for it. I'm saying I'd want to see the ballot.

I can picture the official, too. Striped shirt, little whistle, standing by the canned tomatoes. Not mean about it. Just a polite tweet and a hand pointing toward the end cap.

I don't mind people visiting. It's one of the better things about living somewhere folks know each other. Catching up by the bread is practically a sacrament around here. Just do it over to the side, where the rest of us aren't trying to get to the milk.

Five dollars seems fair for a first offense. By the third one you've paid for somebody else's groceries, and honestly that might be the most neighborly part of the whole idea.

You've seen it. Five grown adults standing shoulder to shoulder in the cereal aisle, deciding on cereal. As a group. Like it's a zoning hearing.

Nobody's in charge, and nobody's moving. The rest of us stand there with our carts, holding what we hope is a polite expression.

I don't need anybody to hurry. I just need one of the five to notice there's a world on the other side of the Cheerios. One of them. Any of them. You can keep the meeting going, just scoot it over a little.

Eventually you go around by way of the bread. Takes an extra minute. Last I checked, they were still deliberating.

Here's a story I keep hearing in one form or another. Fella ignores the insurance agent for a month. Calls go unanswered, letters go in the pile. Then he gets hit by a car and suddenly he's real interested in getting covered. Starting yesterday, if possible.

I don't laugh at the getting hit part. Nobody deserves that. But the timing is something.

Insurance is about the only thing in life you have to buy before you know you need it. That's the whole deal. The agent wasn't bothering you. He was trying to get there before the car did.

Connecticut put a left-lane camping law on the books for October 1. You can't sit in the left lane unless you're passing, taking an exit, or getting around something in the way.

They had to write that down. That's the part that gets me. The passing lane has been the passing lane my whole life. Somewhere along the way enough people decided it was their living room that a legislature had to remind them.

Oblivious isn't a personality. It's a traffic pattern.

A Florida left-lane clip is going around. I don't even need the video. You already know it. Someone planted in the left lane, a line of cars behind them, and a comment section full of people who have lived this exact Tuesday.

The funny part isn't the driver. It's how many of us can describe them without watching.