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minute after his conversation with me and says, all perky-like: "Can I help you?" I am incredulous. "Wayne," I say. " Get my backpack. " He finally focuses his addled brain on the task at hand, sees it's me, blanches, which I've rarely seen a person do, but each time I've seen it, I've caused it, I have to admit, and leaves to get my backpack.

He comes back and rings up my purchase and tells me it's like, twenty three dollars and change.

"It's on our account."

"But, I rang it up wrong," says Wayne.

"Wayne," says I. "I told you we had an account here. I told you I was gonna be, like, two seconds. I told you all you had to do was let me go on my way. But you had to follow your script. What's your script tell you to do now?"

"Um."

"Well, why don't you clear it all out and ring it up again?"

So he did. Fuming. The whole time.

And you know what he said to me, on the way out? Without irony or sar casm?

"Have a nice day... Mr. Young."

I just don't want to live in the kind of world where this drudgery is not only tolerated, but encouraged.

Lesson? None that I'm aware of. Except, of course, don't turn your brain off. If somebody makes you question your script, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Go back to your script, after I leave, with my blessing, sure; but things aren't going to go according to plan while I'm around.

I like to keep everyone on their toes.

Look Before You Leap August 10, 2001

Apparently, the entire world has gone mental.

I used to think it was just the comic book industry, but now I’m pretty sure

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