Recently, I went to Big Lots to look for an ax to use for some landscaping work I’ve been doing. I found one and then decided to look around the store at the other bargains, all the while, carrying the ax. Funnily enough, I noticed that people certainly treat you differently when you’re walking around with an ax. I was intentionally carrying it down to my side so that I didn’t inadvertently clip something or someone with it while I was shopping. Even though I was carrying it much like I’d carry, say, a rake, I noticed that people were giving me strange looks and giving me a wide berth as I meandered about the store. I sort of envision the mental process of my fellow shoppers being something like this:

“Do-de-da-do, need to find an extension cord for those Christmas lights. C’mon, lady, get the Hell out of my way. I don’t care if you’re on a walker and dragging an oxygen tank. Move your shriveled, flowered-dress-wearin’ tail before I mow you down with my cart. Can’t you see that I’m important with my sans-a-belt pants and my golf shirt stretched tightly, like the skin on a grape, over my bulbous midsection? I’m a powerfully built man, on a mission, so move, you dawdling ol’ blue hair. Good, I’m finally past that old bag. Uh oh, there’s a big, lumbering guy with spiky hair approaching down the same aisle as me. I’m going to get right in the center of the aisle, make direct eye contact with him and refuse to give an inch, even though he’s obviously trying to be polite and give me a fair share of the aisle. I’ll make him back up and let me past first. And when he says, “Pardon me,” I won’t even blink or acknowledge that I heard him trying to be polite, even in the face of my obvious rudeness. Why? Because that’s what I do. I’m three-quarters impotent, unhappily married, haven’t seen my manparts since, oh, about 1972, and my son is a commie-pinko-liberal-metrosexual. I have lots to be miserable about and I get my only glee through being a rude sack of monkey shit at Big Lots. Wait… What’s that in that big dude’s hand? A rake? A shovel? Holt cow, that’s an ax! That big dude I was just about to punk is brandishing an ax in a nonchalant, disaffected sort of way that I find strangely unnerving and wholly emasculating. And I’m not sure, but I think a little bit of pee just came out. My Underoos feel damp. Despite my general piece-of-shit attitude and the fact that when I leave here, I will go back to my rundown ranch-style house in an aging neighborhood and walk into my house that smells of 30 years of greasy cooking and see my grumpy wife, I will be happy to be home and away from that dude with the ax. Wait, let me move this cart aside and say, “Excuse me” as politely as I can and let him pass so that maybe, just maybe he won’t go all Helter Skelter on me right here in Big Lots when all I really wanted to do was buy an extension cord for my Christmas lights.”

So, to make a long story short, I think I’m just going to start carrying that ax everywhere I go.