Call of Duty

Target is good for a lot of stuff. What I didn’t expect to find was a life lesson.

We are such frequent fliers at a Target near our house that the workers know us by name and ask of the boys’ whereabouts when they are not underfoot. I often come in with a travel mug of coffee or stop at the Starbucks inside for a fix before my browsing gets underway. The cashiers all know I bring my own bags and tell me when new LEGO models have come in. It’s a neighborhood Target, and I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I told you that I have yet to step foot inside without seeing someone I know. It’s true, and it makes Mac Daddy crazy. The employees are generally quite friendly and chatty, and there seems to be little turnover.

There is one worker who is always noticeably less pleasant than everyone else. She is gruff, distant, and only smiles every so often as if a smile monitor in her jaw nudges her to show her pearly whites once in a while. She never makes eye contact and gives nary a nod when I say hello. Perhaps my chipper manner is a turn off. Maybe she’s had a bad day. Everyday. Some days I give her the benefit of the doubt. Some days I leave irritated. I mean, I forced myself to smile and endure lots of irritating people in my time behind the register and as a waitress schlepping heavy trays laden with fish and chips and Boddingtons. Working with the public can suck, but it’s part of the job.

Yesterday was one of the days I was feeling irritated. I was in grumpy lady’s line and heard audible harumphing. For the first time in the years I’ve been seeing her, let’s call her Tory, she stared into my eyes with the most palpable sense of earnestness I have ever felt. Her tensed shoulders relaxed slowly as she exhaled, her eyes opened up enough for me to see the steel blue color, and her porcelain face cracked a bit as she smiled gingerly, almost apologetically.

She told me that the woman checking out in front of me has a son serving in Iraq. She told me that every time she comes in they exchange news of their boys. It turns out that Tory has a son about to be deployed to Afghanistan. He’s already spent the greater part of the last five years in Iraq. Tory is single handedly raising her eight year old grandson who has few memories of his father. The mother is nowhere to be seen, MIA after too many years in a stressful marriage. Tory wrung her hands as she talked. She told me how she worries all the time and can’t sleep. She told me she wants a good life for her grandson and works so hard while he’s in school so she can be there for him in the hours he is without his parents. She is all this little boy has. And Tory fears that he is all she will have.

Tory already lost a son in Iraq.

Now another is going off to answer his call of duty.