Excerpt: Working Title - Getting Closer to Having One

Inside the store, he first sought out the proprietor to introduce himself (hoping that he wouldn’t then be recognized and find himself alone) and also to tell him about the signs. “Are you Bud?”

“Yessir, that’s me.”

“Hi. My name’s Jimmy Jack. I run a farm up the road a ways.”

Bud looked a little puzzled. “You haven’t been here before, but I feel like I know you.”

“Uh oh,” thought Jimmy Jack. He got really tense and started sweating, but Bud was concentrating on remembering and screwed up his face so that his eyes were almost shut and didn’t seem to notice Jimmy Jack’s discomfort.

“I’ve seen your picture somewhere.”

“Oh, no.”

“No, no it’s OK. I remember now.” He turned and pointed at an enormously large section of shelving that was filled with bags of Jimmy Jack’s Home Made Perfumed Manure Plant Food, and it was then that Jimmy Jack remembered – every single bag had a picture of his smiling face completely covering one side of the bag, with the words Jimmy Jack’s Home Made Perfumed Manure Plant Food stamped across it like a stencil. On the other side of the bag were twenty seven suggested uses for the contents, which all amounted to feeding it to your plants and they would grow and be happy.

“Oh, yeah, that’s me.”

“Well, I had no idea your farm was that close. Don’t tell me, you’ve been shopping at Mel’s all these years.”

“Uh, huh. So you know about Mel’s store? And about the sign mix-up?”

“Yeah – funny thing, After Bob, the original owner here, died from the plague, I bought this store from his estate. I couldn’t figure out why he called it Mel’s, but I kept asking around, and finally someone told me about how this place way up the road that had been called Bob’s, was now called Mel’s. I went up there and talked to Mel – asked him if he’d care to switch signs, but he wasn’t interested. Said it would ruin his reputation or something. But I like what he did changing Bob’s to Mel’s on his sign, and so I figured I could do the same thing here, only change it to Bud’s because that’s my name.”

“Well, that’s an interesting story.” Jimmy Jack decided to keep quiet about his role in the plague, and hoped he would not have to answer any questions about why he was here instead of Mel’s. “It’s nice to meet you, Bud. I’ve got a few supplies to pick up. I’ll talk to you later.”

“I’ve got a great deal going on the manure today … mmm …. but I guess you won’t be needing any of that! Hah, hahah, hahaha.”