The Single Life: I’ll show you mine if you show me yours

I was leaving one of those big-box stores and got in the line with a few others who were on their way out of the store. The woman who was in line in front of me set the store alarm/detector off while passing though it with her cart.

As often happens, there is groan from the fast-forming line behind. The security person was doing what security people do and that is to go through each item in each bag and match it with the sales slip that was handed over.

This day was what my mother would have called Market Day, thus the woman who had created the alarm had multiple plastic bags. The fullness of the cart was not lost on the line forming behind me.

It dawned on everyone in line, much at the same time, that there were other exits from the store and still grumping, most of the line dissolved in search of them.

I stayed. I had paid for a 5 pound bag of bird seed and figured the wait time to be equal to that of finding another exit and getting in a longer line.

Which is what happened. The one item that had activated the detector was a gallon of milk which, when removed from the cart, kept everything peaceful and quiet. It also appeared on the sales slip as a paid item.

Maybe this wait had taken all of four or five minutes. The Market Day lady stood patiently while her groceries were examined. The security lady was polite.

Lord knows how many times a day that alarm goes off and that it goes off immediately because you have forgotten to remove all the tags from the shorts that you were wearing out the door. Shrinkage they call it. What walks out of retail stores unpaid for amounts to double digit billions of dollars per year. That’s a lot of shorts. Or gallons of milk.

So as our economy begins to make us think two or maybe three times about whether we need something or just want it, the single person has only to look at the last bank or credit-card statement, and put the rubberband back around the wallet.

What money we have spent for the week, or the whole month, tells an easy tale. There isn’t anyone around to share the blame, but then again there isn’t anyone around to share the glory of your fine management of conservative spending.

This acceptance of the “to have or not have” seeps over into a possible recalculation of who you might like to get to know better — better, as in a romance.

Go dancing tonight? I’d love it. Where do you bank?

A bit to the extreme, but I’d rather get that financial stuff out in the open. I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours. I think that’s fair enough, unless you like surprise endings.

Your gas or mine?

Sometimes these answers are hard to accept. The love or the lust in your body trumps the moment. Caution is just a seven-letter word.

We have grown used to being patted down at the airport, asked to identify what is in the package you mail, give the last four digits of your social security number and perhaps your mother’s maiden name, and yet identity theft finds an alternate entrance and escapes with the good stuff on your want list.

You lean in together for a first kiss.

You could spoil the moment and query, “Are you completely diversified?”

Mary Ann Linforth is a freelance writer. Contact her at maryannlinforth@aol.com.