“Vortex”

I was in Wal-Mart with my sister and my father. We were meandering through the aisles, kind of killing time because what else can you really do in a place called Cumming, GA? Just kidding. It’s not that bad. We have deer. And rabbits. And hawks. But mostly deer. Anyway…

We are walking up and down the aisles and we come to the bathroom improvement aisle. Is that the name of the aisle? Nope. But stay with me here…

In this aisle, there are many things you can buy to improve your bathroom situation. They have toilet seats in different sizes, padded toilet seats for extra cushion, raised toilet seats, shelves to put over your toilet for extra storage space, etc. I got to hand it to Wal-Mart. They offer a lot of things.

In this aisle, there are also many plungers. That’s right. Many plungers not just plungers. They have different brand names, different sizes, the works. They came in all sorts of sizes; some for small sinks and regular old-school black plungers with the wooden stick. There is a black suction looking one that looks like Batman accidentally left it behind or something.

But there was one that stood out to me…one special plunger that looked like it didn’t belong there with the other plungers. This plunger needed its own shelf. It needed to be in a locked display case, decked out with red velvet and light shining down on it as it spun around on a motorized turntable. This was the kind of plunger that you needed a store employee to come and unlock the display case for you to even touch it. It was packaged with that deadly plastic packaging that guarantees some sort of hand injury when handling. It had graphics on the cover and stickers illuminating its abilities. This was a hardcore plunger and I was becoming acquainted with it for the first time. It reached its hand out to me and I blushed. Its name was Vortex.

Ok. That was super dramatic. But this plunger was called, no lie, Vortex.

As I stood there in Wal-Mart holding this bad-ass plunger in my elongated, quivering fingers, I could tell this was a unique plunger. The packaging, the two handles, the ergonomic design, the sheer ruggedness of this magical device was rare and something to be admired. I made my sister aware of it.

“Omg. Look at this plunger.”

She walks over to me and notices it. My dad is somewhere behind me looking at lightbulbs or something. My sister looks the plunger in my hands from a distance. She didn’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation. But me, I, myself, I…just can’t get over the power of this plunger. I went on and on.

“Gosh, just look at the handles. They are like, these beefy handles.”

I hear rustling and walking behind me and I think that I finally got my dad’s attention and he’s walking over now to realize, and applaud, my discovery.

I turn to the soft rustling and say, “That’ll definitely get the job done, huh-?”

But it was too late.

The rustling wasn’t my dad. The walking wasn’t the tall, handsome man who raised me, coming up from behind me to pat me on the back and share a moment with me as we both admired and praised my findings. NO. Anything but the sort. In fact, it was the exact opposite.

It was this gray haired, short, man with a jean jacket, LAUGHING HIS HEAD OFF, as he continued walking down the aisle, minding his own business.

And it wasn’t just a jolly good laugh. It was like, he realized the mistake I had made in confiding this precious information to him. And he tried his best to stifle his laughter. Oh, boy, did he try. It wasn’t like he was a jerk. He was probably some grandpa just trying to get his grandkids some Christmas presents but got lost in the bathroom improvement aisle. I don’t know.

But despite his best efforts, a moment after I had said what I said, the laughter just came out. The laughter just came out like someone had popped this balloon and it was just, gushing out of him. He couldn’t believe, maybe, that I was capable of saying something like that. He just couldn’t believe it.

What an awful moment. It was like a slo-motion play that you couldn’t pause. It just kept going and I just stood there watching it all unfold.

Even worse, I tried just going with it. When the man passed, I turned around to find my father holding two lightbulbs or something with such a confused look on his face. I held up the plunger to him as my face reddened more and weakly said, “See? That’ll…that’ll get it done.” I fumbled with the stupid plunger and put it back on the stupid shelf.

Then my dad started laughing at me. And eventually, I started laughing because what else can you really do in a place called Cumming, GA?

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