Department Stores in Marble Falls, TX

“[Enters slowly, gazing at a rack of discounted throw pillows]

I have traveled to the heart of the Amazon. I have walked across continents in winter. I have stared into the eyes of Klaus Kinski and survived. But nothing… nothing could have prepared me for the Ross Dress for Less on Sepulveda Boulevard.
Look at this. A decorative rooster. Ceramic. Painted in colors that exist nowhere in nature. Who made this rooster? Some factory worker in a distant province, dreaming perhaps of escape, of meaning, of a life beyond roosters. And now it sits here, marked down from $24.99 to $6.49, and still — still — no one wants it. This rooster is all of us.
I pick up a throw blanket. It says “Live, Laugh, Love.” I stare at it for a long time. The checkout woman asks if I am okay. I tell her I have never been okay. She returns to her register. This is the correct response.
The shoe aisle. My God. The shoe aisle. There is one high heel in a size seven and one Croc in a size eleven and they are placed next to each other as if in conversation. What are they saying to each other? Nothing. They are saying nothing. That is what makes it profound.
A child is crying somewhere in housewares. His mother is examining a picture frame with no picture in it — just a photograph of a stock family, smiling, pretending to be someone’s memory. The child understands something the mother does not. The child is a philosopher. The child should be given a grant.
I find a North Face jacket for $18. It is missing a zipper pull. I buy it immediately. This is the only honest transaction I have ever made.
At the register, the cashier asks if I found everything okay. I tell her that no man has ever truly found everything okay, and that the search itself is the only meaning available to us in this fallen world. She gives me my receipt. I keep it. Someday, long after I am gone, an archaeologist will find this receipt and will know that someone was here. Someone bought a jacket and two scented candles and a set of tongs. Someone lived.
[Exits into the parking lot, receipt in hand, squinting at the sun like a man who has witnessed the full indifference of the cosmos and decided, anyway, to come back next Saturday]

“The universe has no obligation to make sense to you. But the tongs were a good deal.”

Werner Herzog.”

“Curbside is usually quick. Our local grocery store gives you bad produce when you order curbside, I've never had that issue with Walmart and I appreciate that”

“The store is basically an extension of the jewelry store next-door. The two businesses are owned by the same people. This is an upscale ladies boutique store with some fine clothing options with prices to match. There's nothing here for men except wallets, tie clips and watches.”