Category: Jokes and Humor

I think I saw Ben Franklin at the grocery store.

Okay, okay, I know it couldn’t have been him. It’s not as if he is some immortal that just goes around shopping at large supermarkets in the desert Southwest, but it sure looked like him.

I was walking into my local Fry’s. It was a weekend and I was on a morning mission for Tasty. As I selected the finest cart I could find and turned it around to go the rest of the way into the store, I saw an older gentleman who was the absolute spitting image of the celebrated Mr. Franklin. He had a roundish face, and a bit of extra on his chin, and brown somewhat fluffy hair, swept back from a slightly receding hairline, and a fine, high brow. He even had little, round, gold spectacles of the same type I’ve seen in many a painting.

I would have thought he was from a performer’s troupe only he was wearing shorts and modern clothes. He gave me a knowing smile and little nod, and headed out of the store.

I will probably never see this guy again. He raises in me a great and terrible curiosity. If I ever do see him, I wonder if I will have the brazenness to call out “Hey, Ben?”

(And I thought my DAD looked like Franklin? This guy has him beaten all hollow.)

I needed a four by four post, two to three feet in length. I needed it to build a scratching post for my furry friends. I have a major home improvement store two blocks away and it sells lumber. Problem solved, right?

Wrong….

I went there, to the large, well stocked lumber section. Found an employee who was working in that section, assigned to it, not just passing through. I asked her where I could find scrap lumber, and if there were any short lengths of four by four. She said there wasn’t anywhere I could buy scrap lumber, that they threw it all away, but I could buy an eight foot four by four instead. I said fine, left.

I found my one by twelve board I needed for the base of the scratching post, and grumpily picked out a six foot section of two by four. Perhaps I could cut it in half, nail the halves together, and make a four by four, I thought. When I found an employee to run the saw, I asked him if there was any place I could buy a section of four by four – and he said maybe.

We went to the scrap lumber section (that didn’t exist according to the other employee) and sure enough, there was a big ten foot four by four at 70% off! We talked about it, he realized he’d been looking for some chunks of four by four as well, and we ended up each taking part of the wood.

Amazing how hard it is to get a short piece! I’ll remember that for next time.