Yes, they really do walk among us

I’ve noticed, in my travels, that more and more folks seem to have lost their powers of observation. Increasingly, the world seems to be full of blank-eyed humanoids who make their rounds in a zombie-like state, either staring into space or, if they are stationary, fiddling with their smart phones while life passes them by.

So I suppose I should not have been surprised when an employee of a big-box story recently struck up an idiotic conversation with me as I was leaving empty-handed. I had gone there in search of a galvanized trash can, but the store had none. So I left without buying anything. My hands were empty. Devoid of bags. Lacking in goodies. Bereft of stuff. It was obvious to any semi-conscious observer that I had made no purchases.

“How are you today?” the young man with the forced smile asked.

“Fine,” I replied, even though that was a bold-faced lie because I was quite grumpy about not having found what I was looking for. “And you?” I asked as I kept walking toward the exit.

“Fine." There was a momentary pause, during which the worker recalled his employee training. And then, the kicker: "Did you find everything you were looking for today?”

I suppose I could have gone up to this guy and shouted: "Does it look like I found everything I was looking for today?" But that would have been rude. And pointless. And provocative to the undead. So I settled for a simple: "Nope." By then, having reached the door, I escaped into the parking lot.

Maybe zombies are more than a literary craze. Maybe they’re quite real. And they walk among us. At Lowe’s.