“Tom, I don’t mean to sound critical, but why do you always park way back here and then we have to walk through the parking lot with the children?”
“Jane, the car is the size of a boat, and I like to leave myself some breathing room.”
“Dad, why is that giant American flag up there—what does it mean when they fly the flag?”
“That’s a good question,” Tom, the dad, says as the doors of the extra-large minivan slide open and they all hop out.
“I like to think it means they’re happy,” Jane, the mom, says. “Everyone hold hands—it’s a parking lot.”
“How do they get the flag up there?” Tilda, the little girl, asks.
“I actually know the answer to that,” the dad says. “There’s a hole in the ceiling of the store, and every morning someone climbs up and sends the flag up the flagpole.”
“I don’t remember the flag from last time we were here,” says young Jimmy, who is nine.
“It was raining last week—they don’t fly the flag in the rain,” the dad says.
“Tom, is that really true, about the hole?” Jane asks. “It’s not like an automatically retracting flag that rolls itself up at night and unfurls again in the morning on a timer?”
“One hundred percent true. Remember awhile back when a guy took the whole store hostage and started giving away the merchandise?”
“The disgruntled former employee?”
“Yes, and he got everyone in the store to go along with him, and they just started giving things away. People were coming out of the store carrying things, and the cops didn’t know who to stop. ‘Whatever it is, take it. You earned it, you already paid for it,’ was his motto.”
“He was one of those Robin Hood of America guys,” Jane adds.
“That’s right, and the cops didn’t want to shoot him, and they were going to gas the whole place, and people rioted outside—they said the place was filled with innocent victims and that you couldn’t gas someone who didn’t even appear dangerous, or armed.
“And in the end he surrendered. He went up to the roof—took down the flag and rose up an XXXL white T-shirt, and the police helicopter came in and took him away.”
“Policemen don’t shoot people in real life, do they? I thought you said that was just on TV,” Tilda says.
“They’re supposed to try very hard not to shoot people,” Jane says.
“Did you see it happen?” Jimmy asks.
“We watched on TV from home,” Jane says.
Tom and Jane each take a large cart—whose front section has been molded into a toy car complete with horn and working headlights—and push through the automatic doors.
“Do you kids want to drive?” Jane asks.
“I’m too big,” Jimmy says. “My head hits the roof.”
Tilda happily climbs into her mother’s cart.
Tom checks his watch. “It’s 0900 hours,” he says. His stomach gurgles—it’s the coffee, waffles, bacon, and the bowl of Tilda’s cereal combining into a slurry of caffeine and carbohydrates, which will cause his thinking to become slightly fogged. “As soon as we go over our mission statement, I will start the clock. We will have thirty minutes to complete our task.”
The store lighting is intense—fluorescent bulbs hum high above. All the products appear to vibrate as though about to leap off the shelves.
“In today’s game sequence, the first person who gets everything on this list will receive a prize, and the first team (boys versus girls) who complete their list will also get a prize. As you know, we evaluate not just for absolute number and identification of items but also for quality of purchase: Is it on sale, in the flyer, covered by a coupon, part of a value pack?” Tom reads the rules off a piece of paper he’s plucked from his pocket. He stays up too late at night—working out various game scenarios and scoring systems.
“What’s the prize?” Tilda wants to know. “Is it pink?”
“If you win it, it’s pink,” Tom says.
“Does it have a remote control and batteries?” Jimmy asks.
“Yes, son, if you win, it has a remote control and batteries.”
“Will it love me?” Tilda asks.
No one answers.
“Okay, kids. Jimmy, you’ve got your pager—if anyone gets lost or needs directions, just contact your mother or me. On your mark, get set, go. May the best shoppers win.”
“Tildy, let’s look at our list,” Jane says. “We’ve got groceries, detergent, and hydrogen peroxide, and Daddy gave us prescriptions to refill. Let’s do that first so they’ll be ready.” As they roll the cart toward the drug counter, Jane spots Tide on sale. “Grab it,” she tells Tildy.
“It’s heavy.”
“Lift, girl. Good job. Okay, now go down the aisle and see the Palmolive—get the one with the yellow ticket under it. Get two at eighty-eight cents and we’ll get bonus points. Hang on, I have to put the toilet paper back. This one, twenty-four giant rolls, is a better value than twenty-four double—giant is double plus half a roll, and it’s only two dollars more. That’s twelve single rolls for two dollars—you can’t beat it. Quick now, grab those plain white mailing envelopes, a box of fifty for a dollar. Don’t take the box of one hundred for two-fifty—it’s fifty cents more for nothing.” They pull the cart into the line at the pharmacy counter. “I’ll wait in line. Can you find the milk? We need one gallon of two percent and a half-pint of fat-free half-and-half.”
“Mom, I’m seven years old.”
“Meaning I’m asking too much of you?”
“Meaning give me the list—what does it say? Milk, half-and-half, cereal.”
“The bran flakes that your father likes.”
“I’ll recognize the box,” Tilda says.
“This line is really slow. We may have to ask for bonus minutes—to be held against the store,” Jane says, referring to Tom’s very elaborately calibrated scoring system.
“Daddy loves this store—he’s not going to give us bonus minutes. Go to the front of the line and see if you can pay someone to let you skip ahead.”
“What?”
“I want to win. Offer the person up front five dollars to trade places.” She pulls a five out of her pocket.
“I can’t do that.”
“You can, Mom. I want to win. It’s my five dollars to spend however I choose. And the prize will be worth more than five dollars—it’s at least ten.”
“Then you do it.”
Tildy goes to the front of the line. “Excuse me. I’m in a contest. My mom and I have to do all the family shopping in thirty minutes. Could we pay you five dollars to trade places with us? Oh, thank you, thank you so much.”
Jane pulls the cart up—they’re next in line.
“See, I told you,” Tildy whispers. “All you have to do is ask.”
“Dad, why do you like the Mammoth Mart better than the other stores?” Jimmy asks.
Tom shrugs. “It’s soup to nuts, one-stop shopping. And what really sold me on the store was when I bought the casket for your Uncle Luther. That impressed me—who knew they sold caskets?”
“What aisle?”
“I did it online. Death is not something to take lightly or be cheap about, but at the same time I didn’t want to get ripped off. And while your mother is right—maybe I shouldn’t have had it delivered to his house while he was still alive—I didn’t realize it could go straight to the funeral home until after I’d clicked ‘complete order.’ The good news was he wasn’t too aware.”
“Didn’t he live for like another month—with the casket in his garage?”
“He had no idea it was there. He did, however, keep looking out the window at his own car, which had to be parked in the driveway to make room, and asking, ‘Whose car is that? Who is visiting me?’ I think he found it comforting.”
“Dad, they don’t have the tires,” Jimmy says, looking at the area where the tires should be.
“Are they out of stock or not yet in stock?”
“Can’t tell.”
“We’ll check with customer service at the end—it’s on the other side of the store. Anyway, I hope you never have to shop for death, but as an interesting point of fact, buying the casket ahead of time costs nine hundred sixty-nine dollars. If you needed it overnight, though—which I can appreciate some people do—the cost jumped to four thousand five hundred fifty dollars for the exact same thing. There’s too much profit in grief.”
Jane and Tilda turn a corner. “Daddy didn’t put it on the list, but we also have to buy things to take to Aunt Francie’s house for Thanksgiving.”
“Why are we going there?”
“Because she can’t get out.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, baby, it’s a horrible story. Her husband beat her, and she got so depressed that she ate herself so fat she can’t fit out the door of the mobile home, so we’re bringing Thanksgiving to her. Which reminds me, everything needs to be reduced-fat.”
“Is that what Daddy calls ‘reduced-flavor’?”
“We’ll bring hot sauce for him. We have to help her get thinner so she can get out and meet someone new, someone not so violent. Daddy thinks we should convince her to move her mobile home closer to where we live—that she’d do better with family around.”
“Okay, Mama, what’s next on the list?”
“Ziploc bags—snack, sandwich, quart, and gallon.”
“Mama, look at that person!”
“Tildy, don’t point.”
“Is it a grown-up or a child?”
“Someone stuck in between.”
“It looks like someone from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Can I touch him?”
“Better not to touch strangers.” Jane’s cell phone rings, and she glances at it. “It’s Daddy with a halftime progress report.”
“Are you going to answer it?”
“No, he’s just calling for a gloat. Let’s wait and hear the voice mail. We can always call him back.”
She waits a minute and then checks her voice mail: “Hi, hon, it’s us. I’ll take it as a positive that you didn’t answer—maybe you cracked the code and are near the mop heads, where the signal is poor, which means you’re right on track. Jimmy Cricket and I are ahead of schedule—snow tires are not yet in stock, the sale on D batteries ended yesterday, and we have a rain check on two items, car oil and your pantyhose. We’ll see you soon.”
Jane dials him back. “There is no mop head on my list.”
“Yes there is, sweetie. It’s in the double-point, secret-code box at the bottom.”
“I hate this game, Tom, I just hate it.”
“Go get the mop head and we’ll meet you in electronics.”
“Fine. Tildy? Where did Tildy go?” Trying not to panic, Jane hangs up on Tom.
“Tildy? Where are you? Can you hear me?” She pushes the panic button on her key chain, which makes the teddy bear on Tilda’s shoes growl. In the distance she can hear it, a dim growling beacon, sometimes louder, sometimes softer. Quickly, Jane goes up and down the aisles. “Tildy! Tildy!” she calls. “Come out, come out. Ollie, ollie, oxen free.”
“Mama, where are you? Did you move, Mama? Mama?”
“Tildy, you’re throwing us off schedule.” They talk in loud voices, just an aisle away from each other.
“But, Mama, I found the thing I always wanted.” Tilda appears at the end of a row, holding a baby doll swaddled in white blankets.
“Oh, Tildy, you have so many dolls.”
“It’s not a doll, Mommy, it’s a real baby.”
Tilda is right. Jane quickly takes the baby from the child. Tilda begins to cry. “Mama, why’d you snatch it?”
“It’s a real baby. I don’t want you to drop it.”
“I carried it all the way across the store perfectly fine. Can we get it, Mama? Can we take it home?”
“Where did you find it?”
“On top of the towels. I was on my way to the mop heads, and I saw it. Can I get it, please, please, please? It can be my birthday present and my Christmas present.”
“Tilda, we’re out of time. We have to hurry. Let’s go find Daddy and Jimmy. Did you get the mop head?”
She shakes her head no.
“We’ll grab it as we go. Let’s step on it.” Tilda pushes the cart, fast, while Jane holds the baby, and together they run through the store.
“You’re late,” Tom says as they approach.
“We had a delay.”
“Potty stop?”
“We borned a baby,” Tilda says.
“Where?”
“On top of the towels. Can I get it? Can I, can I? It can be for my birthday and Christmas and everything else, too.”
Tom takes the baby from Jane and gently turns it around, looking it over. “Doesn’t have a bar code. I don’t think it’s for sale. Babies usually belong to someone.”
“Like their parents,” Jimmy says.
“Yes, but this one doesn’t have parents. It was orphanated. It was there just waiting for me.”
“Can you show us where?” Tom asks. “Was it in a stroller or a carriage?”
“It was on a shelf,” Tilda says, leading the family back to the spot.
On the towels there’s a dent where the baby had been.
“Someone must have put it down for a moment,” Tom says.
“It could have slipped off and fallen. It could have gone unnoticed and starved. It could have—” Jane says.
“But it didn’t,” Tom says.
“That’s little comfort.”
“The baby’s mommy is going to be looking for it,” Jimmy says.
“Or not,” Tom says. He unwraps the baby. “Look at the umbilicus. It’s a very rough cut, like someone did it themselves.”
“An outie for sure,” Jane says.
“Maybe someone brought the baby here on purpose,” Tom suggests.
“Maybe it belongs to someone who works here?” Jane says.
“Let’s ask,” Tilda says. “And if no one wants it, we can keep it.”
“What are we going to do, ask people if they’re missing something? If they’ve lost that loving feeling?”
“They could announce it over the loudspeaker: ‘Would whoever left the baby on top of the towels please come to Aisle Nine,’” Jimmy says.
“What are we going to do—have them make an announcement? What if there’s a pervert in the store? What if some pervert claims the baby? Then how would you feel?” Tom says.
“You get into a lot of trouble for stealing a baby.”
“We’re not stealing it—someone left it here knowing that nice people come to this store, people who are loving and can provide a good home and all that goes with it,” Tom says.
“Babies need clothes and diapers and wipes and bottles and formula and a crib and a car seat and a stroller and a bottle warmer and a diaper pail,” says Jane.
“And toys,” says Jimmy.
“Goodie,” says Tildy.
“Are you ready for a new baby?” Tom asks Jane quietly.
“When is anyone ready?” she says. What the children don’t know is that Tom and Jane have been trying. They have been trying for years—they’d almost gotten there this time last year, but then they didn’t. Jane thinks the problem is hers—she’s getting old. Tom thinks it’s just the way life is.
Jane says there is no such thing anymore as the way life is—science has changed all that.
“Are we really going to buy all the baby stuff?” Jimmy wants to know. “It’s not on my list—how does it affect the game? And is it a girl or a boy?”
Jane unwraps the baby and peers down into the diaper. “Boy,” she says.
“Well, that’s good,” Jimmy says. “At least it’s another one for our team.”
“Before we do anything, we need to think,” Tom says, stalling for time. He turns to the kids. “Go get an instant camera, shoot some pictures of the baby—the baby in the towels, the baby with the aisle number in the background—and we’ll put them around the store with our phone number on the back. That way if the mother comes back, she’ll know how to find us.”
Tilda and Jimmy head off for the camera. Tom and Jane stay with the baby.
“What do you really think?” Tom asks.
“It seems too easy. I worry we’re setting ourselves up for trouble. What about the legality? What about a birth certificate? What about health issues?”
Tom studies the baby, puts his head to the baby’s chest and listens.
“He looks perfectly healthy. Maybe the woman didn’t realize she was pregnant—you know how girls are.”
“No, I don’t know how girls are,” Jane says defensively.
“I say we change it,” Tom says. “Practically speaking, everything we might buy for the baby has a ninety-day return, so beyond the cost of diapers, bottles, and formula it’s not going to cost us.”
“What about the price for heartache?”
“The kids are into it,” Tom says.
“Of course they are. They’re just like you—consumers to the core. They love the idea of getting a baby from the store—more things to shop for. What could be better? And what are they going to say when people ask where the baby came from? We can’t ask the children to lie.”
“You’re right, and you can’t trust Tilda not to tell the truth—Little Ms. Honesty. When someone asks where the baby came from, we’ll simply say Aisle Nine.”
Tilda and Jimmy return with a disposable camera. “Is it okay to use it before we pay for it?” Jimmy asks.
“Yes,” Tom says. “We’ll keep the wrapper and pay later.”
“Just photograph the baby,” Jane says. “No people in the photos, nothing someone could recognize.” They lay the baby back down on the towels, and Jimmy takes the photos—the flash makes the baby cry. Tom and Jane look around, worried someone will suspect something.
“Okay, so Jimmy and I will take the baby and put the photos up, and you and Tilda pick out the baby stuff—remember, we don’t have to get it all today, just the essentials—and we’ll meet you in electronics.”
“How long do we have?”
“Soccer is at noon.”
“But Tom, I also have to shop for Francie’s Thanksgiving. None of the Thanksgiving items were on the list. I’m going to have to go to a real grocery store—one with produce.”
“Later,” Tom says. “Let’s finish our business here.”
And then Tom pretends to remember one more item and sends the kids off for it, and Jane knows he’s up to something.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“I just wanted a moment alone with you—I want you to know that if we end up keeping this baby, things aren’t going to change. I’m still going to want you, want you badly. And, well, you know . . .”
“No, I don’t know.”
“I’ll still want to play the games we play.”
“Are you referring to something in particular?”
He nods to an old woman going past in a motorized cart.
Jane laughs.
She’s never told anyone, but sometimes on Friday nights she and Tom go to a store, if not this exact one, then another one like it. Jane limps in using a cane she bought at a garage sale, and Tom comes separately, walking with one hip higher than the other, a dangling arm, and his baseball hat pulled low. They each ask for a motorized handicapped cart and then race up and down the aisles, remembering when they were young and went go-carting and rode bumper cars. And then they up the ante: They set a budget and pick a theme—like ten bucks’ worth of something you’d want to see the other wear or do. Once they even did it in a PetSmart—a little kinky but worth it.
“Am I blushing?” Jane asks. “I feel like I’m blushing.”
“I just want you to know how much I love you.” Tom pulls a pair of leopard-print panties from the bottom of his cart. “Ninety-nine cents,” he says, waving them.
“Not in front of the children.”
Tilda and Jimmy return with half-price Halloween candy. “Is this what you wanted?” they ask.
“Yes, thanks. I have a Thanksgiving recipe that calls for old candy.” He takes the candy, winks at Jane. “And it’s on sale for forty-six cents. Good job.”
“Can we get this?” Tilda holds up a toy cell phone that’s filled with lip gloss. “It’s marked ‘Clearance.’”
“It’s not on the list,” Jimmy says with certainty.
“Sure you can,” Tom tells Tilda.
Shocked, Jimmy grabs something for himself. “If she gets something, then I get something, too.”
“Could you pick something other than a gun?” Jane says.
Jimmy looks down at the gun. “It shoots marshmallows, which are eco-friendly and a fat-free food.”
“A gun is a gun. Mind your mother and pick out something else. Today everyone gets something. A prize for every player,” Tom says.
And so Tom and Jimmy and Baby go around the store taping baby photos in random places—including on the television screens in the electronics area. They become distracted, mesmerized by the glow of the TVs, some of which are larger than the living room of the house Tom had grown up in. The screens are bursting with color, high definition, digital broadcasting, et cetera, and all show the same three programs in no particular order—an action-adventure space film, college football, and a cooking show.
Tilda and Jane make a beeline for the baby department and load up on wipes, diapers, bottles, formula, a car seat, a Pack ’n Play, and a few outfits and toys.
In front of the televisions, Tom is hypnotized, drawn in. He reflexively jiggles the baby in his arms, but his eyes remain fixed on the screens. “I remember black-and-white,” he tells Jimmy. “I remember remote controls with big white buttons like teeth and an audible click. I remember rabbit ears and static. I remember Walter Cronkite—he might have been the last man I trusted. I remember listening to baseball on the radio while reading a comic book and eating pistachio nuts dyed red. I remember riding in my parents’ car when there were only lap belts and no one wore them. I remember being sent out to play in the morning and being told to come home in time for dinner. I remember trying to get lost. I remember Yogi Bear and Ranger Smith. I remember when a president spoke as though he were addressing the people. And I remember Richard Nixon saying, ‘I played by the rules of politics as I found them.’ And I remember Martin Luther King: ‘Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.’ And Robert Kennedy, although I’m not sure that I remember him while he was still alive. ‘A revolution is coming—a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability.’ The point is, I remember America. I remember when politicians had a vision, a dream for the people of this country, and didn’t run their campaign based on a tax rebate if elected—essentially attempting to buy the vote. Are we that gullible that we thought George Bush’s three-hundred-dollar rebate would cover it? Think of what that vote cost, think of your retirement account, your health insurance, your mortgage, and your cost of living versus your salary. How much did you lose, and how much did you make?”
“Who is that man talking to?” someone asks.
“He’s speaking to me,” another man says.
“This is my America,” Tom says.
“Hey, buddy, I’m in there with you,” another person adds.
“Run for office—you’ve got my vote,” a woman passing by chimes in.
“Mine, too.”
People begin to come up and shake Tom’s free hand. A man grabs a microphone from a karaoke machine and blows into it to be sure it’s on. “Testing, testing, one, two, three. Can you hear me?” The crowd nods. And with “White Christmas” playing in the background, he announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, shoppers of all kinds, it is my pleasure to introduce you to the next president of the United States. What’s your name?” the guy whispers to Tom.
“Tom. Tom Sanford.”
“Shoppers, come on down to the electronics area and meet Tom Sanford, the people’s candidate for president.”
“I can’t run for president,” Tom says.
“Sure you can, anyone can. It’s still a free country, and you’ve got to keep it that way. Plus, my friend, you have a way with people. I’ll be your campaign manager. S-A-N-F-O-R-D—is that the right spelling?”
Tom nods.
“Yours will be the campaign that’s about returning the government to the people. I’ll be right back,” the man says, and dashes off.
“Adorable baby,” someone calls out. “He’s got your chin.”
Tom looks down at the baby in his arms—does he have Tom’s chin?
The self-appointed campaign manager has left the karaoke microphone in Tom’s hand. People are staring, expecting something. Not knowing what to do, Tom continues to speak into the microphone. The background song has changed. “We shop these stores, stores bigger than football fields, each one like an indoor small town, we spend our lives and our dollars in these places that we find comforting, satisfying. I have a story I’d like to share with you today. I know of a family who lived in one such store for a year while they were homeless. These were good people, working people who’d lost their home when the payments on their adjustable-rate mortgage shot up. They wanted to keep their kids in school, they wanted to keep their family together, and so they made friends with the late-night crew at a store. For food they ate what had already been opened or otherwise damaged, used the shampoo that was half spilled. To the outside world, they looked like other families—the kids went to school, played in soccer games, and did their homework in the public library, staying every night until the library closed. The only thing different was that at nine o’clock every night the family of four came into the store, brushed their teeth and washed their faces in the restrooms, and said their prayers on their knees by the mattress displays. Not only were the mattresses good, but the family also felt safe, watched over by the night crew. They felt safe and cared for and as if their community supported them—and the good news was that after a while they were able to get their lives back together, to save money and move into a place they could afford. I’m not going to tell you this family’s name—or what store it was—but I assure you they are real, and they are not the only ones.”
The crowd has grown. There are people, three and four deep in a semicircle before Tom. When he stops talking, they wait. They want more. “Here’s what I want to know,” Tom says. “I want to know what you’re thinking, what your concerns are—about your family, your job, your health, and your home. What do you need from your government? I want to turn it back to us—we come first. We don’t want to send our children to fight wars in places we’ve never been, we don’t want to go into countries where we are not wanted or invited. That doesn’t mean we won’t help—we are always available for humanitarian aid and happy to supply our products to other countries. But let’s see what we can do here at home, how we can support ourselves and our neighbors. I want to have kitchen-table conversations, I want to know what the problems are, and I want you to help me to think of solutions. Our ancestors were pioneers and inventors—we need to be that, too, in our world, in our time. It’s as exciting a world as it was a hundred years ago—our borders are expanding in terms of science and technology—we are part of a global, interlinked society. This country was made from scratch, from hard labor. Let’s not ruin it or poison it. Let’s take what we have learned and make it work for us. And if you’ve just come to this country—you chose it for a reason, for the idea that it promised something more, a better life. Let’s make sure we can continue to offer that to each one of you.”
“Do you believe in God?” someone calls out.
“Yes, I believe in God, and I believe in shopping to Friday sales flyers,” Tom says, and everyone laughs.
Jane and Tilda return, their cart piled high with baby gear, and the family of five stands together as people are holding up their phones, taking pictures, shooting video, broadcasting live.
Someone shows Tom a page from his laptop—it’s Tom with the televisions in the background. “I made you a website. I uploaded your speech to YouTube. It works great.”
“Thanks,” Tom says, shaking the young man’s hand.
Jane checks her watch. “Soccer in thirty,” she says. “Jimmy, you’ll have to change in the car.”
“I will make myself available to you—live on the Net 24/7,” Tom says. “I want to be visible, and I want to be known.”
As the family makes its way to the checkout, the crowd surges toward them.
Tom holds his hand up and waves. Store security guards surround the family, forming a human chain, escorting them toward the registers. The baby is crying.
“Looks like you did some serious damage,” the cashier says.
“How do you mean?” Tom asks.
“You’ve got two full carts—if you want to open an instant credit account, you can get fifteen percent off today.”
“We’ve already done that twice,” Jane says.
“How old do you have to be?” Jimmy asks.
“Do you have a bank account?” the cashier says.
Jimmy nods.
“Well, let’s give it a try.” She hands him a form to fill out.
“Wow, my own credit card!”
“For today only,” Jane says.
“Buy stock,” the cashier tells Tom. “That’s the thing to do. If you like shopping, buy stock in the store.”
“I’ll buy a share for the baby, for his educational account,” Tom says.
“Buy a hundred,” the cashier says.
While they’re checking out, a woman comes up to Jane and asks, “Are you nursing?”
“Pardon?”
“I don’t mean to be intrusive, but I’m a La Leche facilitator. We meet on Wednesday mornings in the community room of the library. It’s a beautiful baby—give her your mother love.”
Jane doesn’t respond.
“We bought Another Love,” Tilda says, holding up a bottle of soy-based formula.
As they leave the store, pushing the two carts ahead of them, the family is surrounded by well-wishers. There are freshly printed banners, courtesy of the home-office demo center in the store: TOM SANFORD: THE RIGHT MAN AT THE RIGHT TIME. A news helicopter hovers overhead.
Every car in the lot has a brand-new red, white, and blue bumper sticker—proclaiming Tom Sanford as the candidate chosen by the people for the people. The local high school cheerleaders are performing in the Keep Clear Fire Lane. “Sanford, Sanford, he’s our man! If he can’t do it, no one can! Sanford, Sanford, he’s the one! Not our pal, not our chum, and he doesn’t even own a gun.”
The campaign manager leads the way.
“How’d I do? Not bad for thirty minutes on the job, right? I was recently ‘workforce-reduced’ from a company for habitually overproducing—it was threatening to my peers and a poor fit with the ‘corporate community.’”
Satellite news trucks pull up as Tom and Jane load the car. Tom reads the instructions for the new car seat and struggles to install it correctly. Reporters approach. “Right here, right now, the people’s candidate, nominated in the store only moments ago by his fellow shoppers. Let’s take a look at him while he does some real-world living.”
“How does it feel?” the reporter asks Tom.
Tom wiggles the new car seat. “Secure,” he says, buckling the baby in. “I’m pleased to meet you and would love to talk, but we’re T minus ten for soccer.” He slides the door closed.
The campaign manager stands nearby as Tom backs out, and the mall security car escorts them to the exit, lights flashing.
“We did well today,” Jane says, looking over their receipts. “We went in with two children and came out with three. We spent four hundred fifty-three dollars, but we saved fifteen percent off the top and can expect sixty-seven dollars’ worth of mail-in rebates within four to six weeks.”
“And I got a credit card,” Jimmy says.
“And I got a baby,” Tilda says.
“And I was just another working stiff,” Tom says, “and now I’m a candidate for president.” He pauses. “So did you get everything on your list?”
“I’ve got everything I could possibly want,” Jane says. “Except the turkey.”