This story comes to me secondhand via The-Closest-Thing-I-Have-On-Earth-To-A-Sister, aka my Girl Child, aka my Mormon Wife, etc. I hope I do it justice because it is entirely too awesome not to be out on the web. The really intriguing fact in my mind is this story is unembellishedly true.

Girl Child has a good friend who works as a bookkeeper at a supermarket in an Upstate city that shall remain nameless. A few weeks ago, she was in early . . . real early. Like 6 AM and she’s already on the job. That means she had to get up at probably 4:30 AM. I didn’t know 4:30 CAME twice a day!

Anyway, she is at her post working when the cashier on duty calls and asks her to “come take a look at this.” Having worked in a supermarket, I can attest to the multitude of meanings that phrase can have. Strange things happen in supermarkets and the smaller the hour, the stranger the things can be.

So bookkeeper girl goes to cashier girl who points out a customer who has just entered the store. The customer was a tall, elegantly attractive lady in complete make-up, with heels, hose, and hair-did. Nothing particularly odd about that, you say and I agree. What is odd, though, is the REST of her outfit consisted of a blue velour bathrobe. That’s it. The woman walked in the store right off the cover of Businesswoman Daily — except she was wearing a power robe instead of a power suit.

Don’t go away, it gets better or weirder depending on your point of view. The woman took a grocery buggy (that’s a “shopping cart” for any Yankees reading along — I’m looking at you, Eric D.) and disappeared down the household goods aisle. Ten minutes later she was back with her buggy filled with one item only. The buggy was level full of boxes of Glad Force Flex 55 gallon Yard and Leaf Waste garbage bags.

Level. Full.

Garbage. Bags.

Black. Ones.

The woman paid for her buggy full of trash bags and left without comment.

Now, let’s recap for those late to the party. Woman, impeccably dressed in hair, heels, hose, and a bathrobe. It’s 6:00 AM. The Sun is not up yet. The little old ladies at Hardees are just getting the first biscuits out of the oven. The elegantly dressed bathrobe clad woman bought a buggy load of really big, really strong, really opaque TRASH BAGS.

Why?

I mean, you HAVE to wonder.

Mama, God love her Pollyanna heart, said that maybe something was wrong with the poor woman’s mind. Maybe, but if you are THAT bad off in the head, the nice men in the white coats usually don’t let you out of your custom fit jumpsuit with the sleeves in the back and it’s hard to drive wearing those things unless you happen to be Linda Blair and then you could just levitate or do that creepy spider-walking thing they cut from the original movie.

Some people have suggested maybe she was going to a company picnic and was in charge of cleanup later in the day. I could buy that if the bathrobe had sported a bunny tail and a rabbit head silhouette on the lapel and the robe was covering some of Vickie’s finest Secrets or some hot number from Freddy out in Hollywood. Oh yeah, and she got in a limousine with Hef because the “company picnic” was at The Mansion.

Budge, The Girl Child, and I have another theory that the bookkeeper who originally recounted the story put forth as well. Elegant Bathrobe Lady was getting dressed for a day at the office in some high paying, high-powered executive position. She’d gotten a bad night’s sleep because she was worried about her ne’er-do-well husband / boyfriend / live-in lover . . . whoever. This significant other had called the previous evening to say he’d be “a little late” getting home.

Well, a little late turned out to be 5:00 AM while EBRL was getting gussied up for work. She’s already decided the evening was going to be “tense” when he walks, or more accurately, staggers into the bathroom, clothes askew, reeking of stale cigarettes and booze. That would have been bad enough. After all, she has been keeping his sorry a-, oops, family blog — his sorry HIDE up for over a year now since he “got laid off” from his tasting job at the pie factory and decided to take some time and “find himself.” So she’s already not really happy with him.

BUT THEN, she catches a whiff of something UNDER the bar funk smell. It’s perfume, and, Brothers and Sisters, IT AIN’T HER BRAND.

This will not end well.

At that moment, all the times her mother told her “he’s worthless” come screaming back.

Then she looks closer. LIPSTICK STAIN ON CHEEK.

All the times her girlfriends had tried to warn her about his hound dog ways come surfing the wave of her anger right on in to shore and, to quote the immortal Garth Brooks-before-he-went-blond-and-weird, “The thunder rolls . . . ”

So, she’s out buying the big, black, strong trash bags to go with the nice new chainsaw she picked up at Lowes as soon as they opened. She has to go by the cleaners to drop off the dress she was going to wear to work and ask them to try to save it even though it’s pretty stained up. It’s one of her very favorite dresses.

Then, she’s going home. She’s already called the office and told them she’ll be a little late.

She’s been meaning to take care of a mess she’s got laying around at home and she just can’t put it off any longer!

What do y’all think?

Me? I was raised by a Mama. I was engaged SIX times. I married Budge. I’m CERTAIN that Hell hath no fury, etc, etc.

In any event, know that I love y’all and keep those feet clean . . . you never know when they may be entered in to evidence!