Daniel Warner (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} danielwarner) wrote,@ 2009-01-27 21:48:00 |
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A&P
Ten years ago I found out that John Updike had lived in Ipswich, MA —my father's hometown. My dad said "oh yeah, Updike... someone pointed him out to me in the grocery store years ago."
"What store?" I asked.
"I think it was the A&P." He replied.
At the time he didn't know Updike had written a story called 'A&P'. He didn't know 'A&P' was stitched into my brain.
Updike died today. I always thought I would meet him. I would have resisted the wankerish urge to tell him that they didn't actually burn suspected witches in Salem.
Who needs a drink?
A&P
"In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I'm in the third check-out slot, with my back to the door, so I don't see them until they're over by the bread. The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid green two-piece. She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs. I stood there with my hand on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or not. I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell. She's one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I know it made her day to trip me up. She'd been watching cash registers forty years and probably never seen a mistake before."
Ten years ago I found out that John Updike had lived in Ipswich, MA —my father's hometown. My dad said "oh yeah, Updike... someone pointed him out to me in the grocery store years ago."
"What store?" I asked.
"I think it was the A&P." He replied.
At the time he didn't know Updike had written a story called 'A&P'. He didn't know 'A&P' was stitched into my brain.
Updike died today. I always thought I would meet him. I would have resisted the wankerish urge to tell him that they didn't actually burn suspected witches in Salem.
Who needs a drink?
A&P
"In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I'm in the third check-out slot, with my back to the door, so I don't see them until they're over by the bread. The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid green two-piece. She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs. I stood there with my hand on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or not. I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell. She's one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I know it made her day to trip me up. She'd been watching cash registers forty years and probably never seen a mistake before."
