Toilet paper periodicals

By Patricia Meyer

I stand aimlessly at the check out stand embracing a six-pack of two-ply toilet paper. The clock reads 8:15 p.m. as I itemized the groceries being tossed to the cashier. An older woman, maybe 45 or 50, cut in line two steps before me with a package of ravioli and a loaf of French bread. Dinner by 9:30 p.m. and bed by 10, I think, guessing that work probably keeps her late and isolated from a domestic life. No children, no hips—no husband, no ring—a dog? No, a cat, I presume. I imagine it sits curled on a barely worn paisley sofa waiting her lonely owner's return.

I stand behind her, a few plus-or-minus years younger, and contemplate my future. As I clutch the paper rolls to my chest, I think of my daughter in bed with fever, waiting her mother's return. An ironic thing is life.

Cold, brightly lit grocery stores—here's where life is real. I glance at the Cosmo propped precociously in its place. She and her sisters challenge female patrons to make the most of our simple lives—to diet, to have better sex and to seize the day. But, ah! Here is where fantasy and reality collide. A child whines, a mother barks, the bells ding, an old man moans for another pack of cigarettes and his wife leans heavily on her basket for support—this is reality.

I step forward with my tissue. I like to call it tissue as it has a softer sound—a sound connoting the importance of its use. "Paper" is not a thing you want touching those tender secret flower like places.

The older woman scurries off, and I relinquish my embrace of my single two-ply item from the paper aisle.

"Anything else, ma'am?" the checker asked.

I look up into the unexpected depths of his icy blue eyes, piercing eyes—eyes that shouldn't belong to a checker, eyes belonging somewhere two steps behind me, eyes that called to me from the periodicals of Men's Life or People but not from behind the red light scanner at Albertsons.

"Ma'am?" he asked again, "is this it?"

I turn away and fumble for cash. For a moment, I consider the potential value of Cosmo and the article titled, "Seven ways to say Hello and never say Goodbye."

"Yes," I said, stealing several seconds to add him up, eyes and all. He's older than your average checker, which means what?

"Unaccomplished," my mother would say; "slaker," my best friend sighs from her ever-present presence in my cerebrum.

I don't think so. I only see pretty eyes. Eyes for old ladies with aching backs, eyes for young ladies with small babies, eyes for 90's gals; eyes from behind the scanner and eyes for me when I pass through.

For a moment, the very real task of gathering groceries has become fantasy. I pass behind the red light scanner and enter the world of GQ as he smiles and hands me change. Our eyes say a quick come again, and I turn and leave. And as the wide doors of reality slide open before me, I step out to my car carrying one slightly brimming bag of a Toilet Paper Periodical fantasy.