Kristen’s visits to Muncie typically occurred in summer. Often, we would pick our friend Tierra up and hoof it around town. Back then, we had time to waste. Although we were in our late teens, not one of the three of us had a Driver’s License. Downtown, the buildings were white concrete. The sun would glare off of them, into our eyes. The cracked asphalt seemed to melt under the sun. We stopped at a “park”, really just a few feet of grass with a statue in the middle, to rest from our arduous journeying.
“I want strawberry shortcake.” Kristen said.
“Okay. Well… Where should we go?” I asked.
“I dunno…” she said.
“Let’s get on the bus and go to Wal-Mart.” Tierra said.
We walked three blocks to the MITS station. It seemed to take ages in the heat. We hopped aboard Route 13, which travels from the Downtown area, across Ball State Campus, to that omnipresent pinnacle of consumerism, Wal-mart. The bus smells like rubber and sweat. The seats are blue with a neon geometric pattern that fails to please the eye. The seats rub uncomfortably against our damp, tank-topped shoulders, scratching like a heat rash that just won’t go away. I didn’t mind. At least it was air-conditioned.
At Wal-Mart, we made a bee-line for the frozen fruits, all the way at the back of the store. We roamed past screaming children, their faces covered in something gooey. One child’s frazzled mother, covered in more snack residue than the child, screams back. Her pink stretch pants have damp spots behind the knees, and clash with her red face.
We grab strawberry goop, you know, the part-liquid, part-Jello stuff that you can throw on your shortcake in ten seconds, that tastes exactly like fake strawberries, a melange of berry flavor and chemical. Delicious. Grab a can of Redi-Whip, some already-formed shortcake. I head for the industrial-grade, auto-open, for-your-comfort doors, but I realize that my comrades are not following.
I trail back through the store, a little worried. I don’t want to deal with the embarrassment of going to the Customer Service Desk and paging my friends. I’d rather search the store for days than go up there and admit to having lost the rest of my party. I walk back through the grocery aisles, glancing straight down each one as I pass, wondering if they’re hiding on an end-cap as I walk by. Nope. Not in the grocery section.
Electronics? Not there, either. I check soft lines and there they are. The lingerie section absconded my friends. Kristen grabs three pairs of panties. They are of a variety that my gigantic butt would split in about six seconds. I am jealous of her tiny waist, her tiny hips, her tiny everything.
We hit the checkout lane, number six according to the plastic triangle towering over us. Strawberry goo, whipped cream, shortcake and sexy panties make their way onto the conveyor built. It quickly turns into the conveyor built of mortification. The cashiers face drops like a two ton boulder. I presume he’s imagining what three teenage girls are doing with a can of whipped cream and panties. My face bursts into flame, and I bustle my friends through the line, snatching up our purchases and hopping back onto the bus.
Downtown, we spy the city building, more grey concrete. It has the pleasure of playing host to numerous picnic tables, where frazzled civil servants eat their bag lunch and smoke Tourneys. We sit down at an unoccupied table, its bare wood warped so badly that you could stick your hand in between each plank. For the rest of the afternoon, we make towers of strawberry decadence, shooting whipped cream into each other’s mouths and laughing so hard we choke.
