by Elise Sax
“Third shelf down,” the boy told me. “Can you help us?”
“Are you in trouble?” I asked, looking around. It was just us and the cashier. The rest of the tiny store was empty, except for more than its share of dirt and grime and enough sugar to give all of Southern California diabetes.
“We’re buying bubble gum,” he told me with a smile and pointed to one of his friends, who was stuffing packets of bubble gum into his pockets. Stores no longer provided bags in California, and it was a problem.
“You’re buying a lot of gum,” I noted.
The boy shrugged. “Kids. What’cha gonna do?”
“We’ve got all of the gum down here, but there’s a bunch in the back that we can’t reach. Will you help?”
“But you’re taller than I am,” I said. They were taller. They were about sixteen years old and had reached or were near full-grown.
“You can climb on my shoulders,” the first boy said.
“Don’t they have a ladder?”
“They won’t let us use it,” he whispered to me.
“We really need the gum,” the third boy explained. “SATs, you know.”
I didn’t know. I had never taken the SAT. I had never even finished high school. But maybe they needed to chew gum to study for or take the SAT. I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to ask because I was embarrassed that I didn’t know. Besides, who was I to stand in the way of three young men and their education?
I followed them to the storage room, which was the size of a large shower. “See?” the first boy said, pointing to the highest shelf. Sure enough, there was a stack of three boxes of bubble gum.
“That shouldn’t be too hard,” I said, not sounding very convinced. “Are you sure you need all of that gum?”
“You can get on my shoulders, grab the gum, and you’ll be down in two minutes, tops,” the first boy said, and crouched down.
“That shouldn’t be too hard,” I repeated, still not sounding very convinced. I straddled the boy’s shoulders, and he stood up, like I weighed nothing, which thrilled me and gave me new motivation to help them out. I stretched my arm and grabbed the top box.
“Throw it down,” one of the boys urged. I tossed it to him and tossed the other boy the second box.
“What are you doing?” the cashier came into the storage room and shouted, waving a gun at us. “Bubble gum bandits! Bubble gum bandits!”
“They’re taking the SAT,” I explained, staring down the barrel of his gun.
“They’re the bubble gum bandits! I’ve already called the police. DICK! DICK! DICK!” the cashier shouted.
It had degenerated very fast.
“This can all be explained,” I said, but he had stopped listening to me. Two of the boys ran like the wind out of the storage room while still holding the bubble gum that I had tossed to them. The cashier waved his gun at them, but thankfully, he didn’t shoot. The boy underneath me shoved my legs off his shoulders and ran for it. I grabbed onto a shelf so I wouldn’t fall.
A responsible shopkeeper will put safety first and bolt his shelves into the wall to avoid disastrous accidents. Especially in earthquake country, the shelves should be bolted in place. But the owner of Mart-n-Save didn’t know about safety or didn’t care because the shelves in the storage room weren’t bolted into the wall.
So, when the boy underneath me shook me off and I grabbed on to the shelves for dear life, the shelves came down, like a domino filled with junk food. “Oh my God!” the cashier yelled, as boxes of Snickers and Pop-Tarts hit him in the face. He tried to shield his head with his gun, but it was of no use. The shelves toppled over and I swung my legs to try to catch my balance to save myself.
It was no use. The shelves, the junk food, and I came tumbling down. The cashier must have had a strong jaw because it wasn’t until I kicked him in the side of the head that he actually lost consciousness.
CHAPTER 2
There are a lot of rules about dating, and sooner or later, your matches will break all of them, bubbeleh. But if they remember to smile and give their date a compliment, it can’t go all wrong. Practice a few compliments with them before they go out. For instance, maybe it’s not so good to focus a compliment on their date’s mole. “The mole on your nose isn’t that bad,” isn’t the best compliment. Also, stay away from how fat or skinny they are or how straight their teeth are. Romantic compliments, those are not. Finding a good compliment isn’t rocket science. Even if they’re dating Quasimodo, they can find something about his sense of humor that’s worth commenting on. You get what I’m saying, dolly? Find the positive in the match and make the experience positive.
Lesson 131, Matchmaking advice from your
Grandma Zelda
“I’m in one piece,” I said, amazed, touching myself. “Not a scratch on me.”
The cashier didn’t answer. He had broken my fall, and he was out cold. We were on the floor under a mountain of junk food and a lot of shelving. I heard police sirens coming closer. Two cop cars, and an ambulance was a few minutes behind them. I had become an expert at emergency vehicles.
“Hello, babe,” I heard and craned my neck around to see Remington Cumberbatch, Spencer’s detective, and my former casual sex partner. He was massive and sexy as hell, like The Rock but with more tattoos and an obsession for sci-fi movies. “Doing a little shopping?”
“They didn’t bolt the shelves into the wall,” I said.
Remington shook his head and tsked. “Don’t they know we live in earthquake country?”
It was nice of him to focus on earthquakes, when Spencer would have wisecracked about me being the worst earthquake the town had ever experienced.
“Let me help you,” Remington said.
“There’s a man underneath me,” I said.
Remington cracked a smile. “As I remember, that’s your best position.”
My face got hot and I probably turned a dark shade of purple, as my brain flashed through memories of Remington naked. He was a lot when he was naked. Like Naked Plus. Uber naked. Naked a la mode. Naked with a cherry on top. Naked, naked, naked.
I blinked out of my reverie, as Remington lifted the shelving off of me and leaned it against the wall, like it was nothing. He yanked me off of the cashier and put his hands on my shoulders, stabilizing me. He looked me in the eyes and smiled. He was very handsome.
And big.
“The boss is busy with wallpaper swatches, so Margie and I took the call,” he told me, still holding on to me. His breath smelled of pizza, and my stomach growled. “And we’re the bubble gum bandits’ command force, so we had to come. Margie’s upset that it cut into our lunch break.”
The paramedics came in and examined the cashier, and Remington walked me back into the store with his arm draped over my shoulders.
“Margie’s the new detective?” I asked.
Remington nodded. A woman in her fifties with a head of short, grey hair walked toward us. She was wearing a black pantsuit with more than her share of bulges and rolls, and I liked her immediately.
“Margie Lagler, detective,” she said, introducing herself to me. “You were a witness to the bubble gum bandits?”
“When you say, bubble gum bandits…” I drifted off. I had to be careful. I didn’t want to incriminate myself.
“Kids are running in gangs, stealing all of the bubble gum in town,” Margie explained, shaking her head, as if the state of affairs in small town America made her sad.
“It’s like a Scorsese movie,” Remington commented and winked at me. I blushed, again, and felt guilty. Spencer wouldn’t like me blushing at his detective and my former romp-in-the-hay-partner.
“That’s terrible,” I said, but my voice came out like Kermit the Frog, and I cleared it and looked away from Remington’s twinkling eyes.
“Wha’ happened?” the cashier groaned from inside the stock room.
“You got a bump on your head,” one of the paramedics told him. “I don’t think you have a concussion. Y
ou want me to take you to the hospital?”
“Is it free?” I heard the cashier ask. I already knew the answer to that.
Bridget waddled into the store. “What’s going on? Gladie, didn’t they have the gummy worms?”
“Oh, sorry. I got side-tracked.” Because I was helping the bubble gum bandits rip off a convenience store. If it ever got back to Spencer, I would never hear the end of it. For some reason, he thought I was a troublemaker.
I showed Bridget where the deep-fried gummy worms were. She grabbed a package, ripped it open, and took a large bite. Her eyes closed in appreciation. “Being an earth goddess is a bitch,” she moaned with her mouth full.
I didn’t doubt it. I tried to avoid any earth goddess behavior whenever I could.
“I’m not giving you my name. You’ll force me to pay you,” the cashier yelled, marching out of the stockroom and side-stepping Remington and Margie. “You’re paying for that, right?” he asked Bridget, who had started on her second package of worms.
“I’m a member of the ACLU,” she told him, as if that explained things. “I’m going to need TUMS, too,” Bridget whispered to me and belched. Her breath smelled like deep-fried gummy worms. I wanted to try one, but I didn’t dare ask her to share. Pregnant women were scary about their cravings.
“I’ll get you the TUMS and meet you at the front,” I told her. I found them an aisle over and grabbed the biggest bottle.
Remington and Margie had followed the cashier, while the paramedics left the store. “We need a statement,” Margie told him. “Can you describe the bubble gum bandits?”
“Three snot-nosed teenagers and her,” he said, pointing at me. I crouched down behind the aisles.
It wasn’t my proudest moment.
“Did you find more deep-fried gummy worms down there?” Bridget asked, looking down at me.
I swallowed and tried to gather my courage. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a lot of courage to gather so after a few seconds of crouching, I stood up. Remington and Margie were staring at me, and the cashier was still pointing.
I put my hands on my hips. “Wha… huh… wha… muh… huh…?” I said, as if I was incredulous at the accusation that I was one of the bubble gum bandits.
“She kicked me in the head and fell on my face, too,” the cashier continued. “Can you arrest her for that?”
Margie scratched her head. “Wait a minute. This is the Gladie? The boss’s Gladie? The one in the picture? Underwear girl?”
I shut my eyes in humiliation. Months before, I had gotten stuck upside down on a telephone pole, and half of the town saw my underpants. I would never live it down.
“You’re famous,” Bridget told me, biting into another gummy worm. “I’m feeling a lot better. Maybe I don’t need the TUMS.”
“I’m feeling a little nauseated, now,” I said, opening the bottle and throwing two pills into my mouth.
“She’s doing it, again. Stealing,” the cashier whispered to Margie and Remington.
“I’m going to pay,” I insisted. I dragged Bridget to the front and slapped the TUMS down on the counter. “This and four packages of deep-fried gummy worms.”
“Six,” Bridget corrected with her mouth full.
“Six,” I said and took my wallet out of my purse. “I don’t seem to have any cash,” I said, searching through it. There was only a coupon for two-for-one chili cheese dogs at the pharmacy. Not a dollar to be seen.
“We take debit and credit,” the cashier said.
A curtain of heat covered my face. I was out of cash in my bank account, too, and I was persona non-grata with all of the major credit card companies. With all of my organizing and hiding, I hadn’t had any paying matches for a while.
“The thing is…” I started.
“Here you go,” Bridget said, throwing a wad of cash onto the counter. “And toss me an Ultra-Kong sized slushy. Do you have corn-nuts?”
“The slushy machine is self-serve,” he told her.
“Didn’t Dr. Sara say something about kale?” I asked her. She was going bonkers in the junk food department, even though she had spent the past few months creating the perfect baby with every organic superfood and supplement she could find.
“Gladie, there’s no such thing as a kale slushy. Am I right?” she asked the cashier.
“We’ve got blue raspberry and Coke. We used to have Mountain Dew, but there was an incident.”
“Damn it. I love Mountain Dew,” Bridget said, kicking the floor. She waddled over to the slushy machine.
Margie was staring at me, and I wiped at my nose, in case something was hanging off it.
“Hey, Gladie, you didn’t steal bubble gum, did you, babe?” Remington asked.
“No!” I said, finally able to tell the truth. I didn’t steal the bubble gum. Sure, I had aided and abetted the theft of bubble gum, but I didn’t actually steal it myself. Phew.
“She says she didn’t steal the bubble gum,” Remington said, his voice loud and booming. He towered over the cashier and had about fifty pounds on him. The cashier was visibly frightened of him.
“Fine,” he said, throwing up his hands. “She didn’t steal the bubble gum.”
I smiled. It was a successful trip to the convenience store. No broken bones, I didn’t have to go to the hospital, and I wasn’t going to get arrested. “So funny that you thought I would steal bubble gum,” I said, laughing. “Me. Stealing bubble gum. Me. So funny! Have you ever heard anything so funny? Bubble gum? I mean, if I was going to steal something, it wouldn’t be bubble gum. Bubble gum!” I laughed loudly.
“Does that camera work?” Margie asked the cashier, pointing at a camera, which was hanging from the ceiling over his head.
“I think so. There are two more and one in the stockroom,” he answered.
I gasped and wished for a stroke.
“This is great,” Margie said, brightly. “We can get this worked out fast and nab the bubble gum bandits.” She flashed me a look when she mentioned the bandits but looked away quickly. Good manners. I liked her, even though she was about to arrest me.
Unfortunately, it turned out that all of the video cameras worked, and after a call to the store’s owner, the footage was hooked up to a laptop, and presto chango, there I was on the video screen, talking to the three bubble gum bandits.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I said.
“It looks like you’re talking to three teenagers,” Margie said.
“Then, it’s exactly what it looks like.”
“You look great, Gladie,” Bridget said, sipping her Ultra-Kong sized slushy. “Usually the camera puts on twenty pounds.”
“Thanks, Bridget.” I did look good at that angle, filmed from up high. But then the footage showed me walk with the bandits into the stockroom, and it didn’t matter how thin I looked.
“Why did you go in there with them?” Margie asked me.
“I was trying to be helpful. I didn’t know they were bandits. It wasn’t like I was aiding and abetting.”
The footage showed me on one of the teenager’s shoulders, tossing down boxes of bubble gum. “Okay, I might have been aiding and abetting, but it wasn’t voluntary. It was involuntary aiding and abetting. Aiding and abetting against my will.”
“You were being helpful,” Margie supplied, understanding. I nodded, relieved. “Too bad you were being helpful to thieves.”
“Gladie’s a non-denominational helper,” Remington said, winking at me.
The video continued with me falling dramatically onto the cashier’s head, and the bandits running away. “See that? I’m a victim,” I said. “I’m a victim of the bubble gum bandits. I’ve been bubble-gummed.”
“She was framed,” Bridget said, slurping her drink. “It’s obvious. What is this? A kangaroo court?”
“What she said,” I said.
“No one’s on trial here, babe,” Remington said. “Everything’s cool. You were playing the duped side and didn’t know it.”
Huh?
“At least your pants stayed on this time,” Margie said, patting me on the back.
Bridget slurped the last of her slushy. “That’s true!” she announced. “You stayed totally dressed. That’s really good, Gladie.”
There’s nothing better in this world than a best friend.
“No DICK,” Remington said, looking at the screen. “The Chief isn’t going to like this.”
“They yelled something about no dick,” I said. “Maybe they’re feminists?”
“Feminists like dicks,” Bridget insisted. “I’m a feminist, and I would kill for some dick. I’m a single woman, and I’ve been pregnant without dick for a thousand years. ‘Responsible for your own orgasm,’ my ass.”
“I’ve never made it with a pregnant chick, but I’d make an exception for you,” the cashier told Bridget.
We stared at the pimply faced young man with the greasy hair. Bridget pretended she hadn’t heard him and dove back into her stash of gummy worms.
“Not that kind of dick,” Remington said, finally. “DICK. Decency in Cannes Kids. It’s an organization that has invaded the town after hearing about what happened with the Easter egg hunt.”
“The dildos,” I said, remembering. Ruth Fletcher, the octogenarian owner of the local tea shop had glued dildos onto the door of her competitor in a fit of rage.
“You were telling the truth?” Margie asked Remington.
He shrugged. “Cool never lies.”
So, the bubble gum bandits were protesting a decency group, which was protesting our town. But why were the bandits protesting by stealing bubble gum? Bridget yawned. “I think I should go home. The last deep-fried gummy worm didn’t land great.”
“I have to take her home,” I told Remington and Margie.
“You’re not going to arrest her?” the cashier asked.
Remington shook his head. “Nope. We’re going to release her back into the wild.”
“It was nice meeting you,” Margie told me and shook my hand. When I took my hand back, I double-checked my wrist for handcuffs. As hard as it was to believe, there was nothing there. I was free to go.