Walmart Strangers: A Micro-Essay Reflecting on Pleasant Encounters

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Superstore Small Talk Gone Right

Tak­en on 6.23.21

One day this past semes­ter, I had a delight­ful con­ver­sa­tion with a stranger at Wal­mart. I’d gone to pick up print­er ink. As it hap­pened, this was my first time shop­ping for print­er ink. Did you know they lock print­er ink behind glass cab­i­nets? I didn’t.

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I stood in the ink aisle and encoun­tered count­less num­bers and price points for the ink. I had no quick answer for this puz­zling fact, so I scanned for the cheap­est one and marked it in my mind. I then made my way to the ser­vice counter.

I nev­er got his name, so I’ll call him Bob. When I encoun­tered Bob, he was stock­ing. After I asked for his help, he told me he’d meet me over there in a sec­ond. Back in the print­er aisle, I felt social, so when Bob ambled over I com­ment­ed on the car­tridge num­bers.

“Hey,” I said. “Out of curios­i­ty, what’re the num­bers for?”

Bob, halfway through pulling the ink out, paused.

“Well, the num­bers are for the print­er. You need them to match, or your print­er will get ruined.”

I had no idea.

Bob direct­ed me towards a binder with print­er infor­ma­tion and asked me to grab him after I found the right ink.

A few moments lat­er, I found the one I need­ed and went to retrieve Bob. He then grabbed the cor­rect ink, and walked me back to the ser­vice counter.

“So, where’re you from?” He asked, walk­ing a few steps ahead of me.

“I’m from Raleigh.”

Bob arrived at the reg­is­ter, but I was a few steps behind.

“I know a Raleigh, Mis­sis­sip­pi,” he said.

I paused because I’m not from Mis­sis­sip­pi. And my friends liked to tease me about my ‘lack of south­ern­ness.’ I also con­sid­ered what I wore: a shirt from where I got my first tat­too and boot­cut jeans over sneak­ers. I didn’t con­sid­er myself dressed from Mis­sis­sip­pi, either.

“Oh, well, I’m from Car­oli­na,” I replied.

Bob nod­ded at the cor­rec­tion and told me that he and his wife intend­ed to trav­el up there for the foot­ball game. Ole Miss played Wake For­est that fol­low­ing week­end in Win­ston-Salem. He also men­tioned and that they planned to vis­it the Bil­ly Gra­ham Muse­um. We then talked about Car­oli­na and what brought me down to Mis­sis­sip­pi.

I bought the ink, and we exchanged best wish­es. I left bright as a bird. The won­ders a con­ver­sa­tion can do.

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