Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree of Truth.
Some things, I’ll keep to myself. Here I am trying to make small talk and being friendly…big mistake.
I’m in the grocery store and the instant I walk in, I know it’s autumn and they’re selling cinnamon brooms again. I love cinnamon brooms. Just can’t stop inhaling it. The smell permeates the whole store. I’m delighted.
Finally, I and my cart of groceries and my new broom reach the cash register. I’m in the shortest aisle and all the others nearby are very, very busy.
“Oh, cinnamon,” the cashier says, turning up her nose. “You like these things?”
“Love them.”
“Well,” she says, “you wouldn’t if you had to be in here for 8 hours straight with a store full of cinnamon brooms. Not enough people are buying them. I’d do anything to get them out of the store.”
I end up chatting with the woman behind me about cinnamon oil and how it should never be applied directly to the skin…unless you really hate the guy.
“Uh! What is that smell?!” Another woman, an acquaintance of the woman behind me, stands directly over the broom in my cart as she interrupts our conversation. “I hate the smell of cinnamon!” she declares, suddenly realizing that her nose is six inches from my cinnamon broom.
The woman behind me continues to talk with me about cinnamon, when I mention to her that cinnamon and vanilla are both aphrodisiacs to men.”
“What?” the cashier interrupts. “Cinnamon is an aphrodisiac?”
Before I can answer, she grabs the mike for the store’s PA system. “Attention customers: get your cinnamon brooms while they last! This lady says cinnamon is an aphrodisiac!”
Guess who everyone was staring at on her way out with a broom?!
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