"DO YOU KNOW WHAT I NEED?"

I am out shopping with a friend.  We have been searching for truly exciting things like mattress pads and ironing board covers and cat litter and rubber bands and storage containers and lawn mower batteries.  We have no true rhyme nor reason to our expedition.  All we know is that when we are done with our shopping, we're going out to eat.

Wandering from store to store, we encounter our usual share of blog-worthy characters:

• The young male clerk who knows way, way, waaaay too much about bed sheets;
• The oblivious family whose daughter first intentionally elbows me then returns to assault my friend, never once apologizing nor excusing herself (nor does anyone related to her reprimand her);
• The waitress who keeps calling us (two women) "guys" (As in, "Do you need anything, GUYS? Excellent, GUYS!");
• The driver from Connecticut who nearly has three accidents in less that ten seconds while still in the parking lot; 
• The screaming tot in the department store because everyone really needs to and wants to listen to your brat shriek.

My favorite moment, though, occurs in Marshalls/Home Goods.  We have been searching the store for all kinds of things but mostly a bed sheet.  I somehow end up with a hot pink workout bra.

My friend and I enter the velvet rope cash register area, a section of the store cluttered with what we who have been in retail refer to as "impulse buys."  There are dog dishes and kids' toys and chocolate and kitchen gadgets and candy and soaps and other attention-grabbing items.  We weave our way through and stand by the sign that indicates we must wait for the next available cashier. 

Suddenly, we look down to the table immediately to our left.  It is jammed full of black boxes, and on each black box is a picture of a beefy young man (ripped six pack, nearly naked), and each identical young male is wearing very skimpy white bikini underwear.  It is impossible to escape the hundreds of shorty-shorts-wearing cardboard men as the display is all but blocking our access to the registers and because the multitude of boxes are arranged into fort-like pillars. 

My friend turns to me and makes a face as if a light-bulb has gone off in her head.  She glances from the semi-nude, underwear-clad images to me and asks loudly, "Do you know what I need?"

Yes, I assure her, I know exactly what you need.  

Apparently I am the dirty old lady because my friend actually realizes that she needs white t-shirts, and she remembers this from seeing the white men's bikini tighty-mini-whities that are made out of white, 100% cotton jersey knit.  She drops out of line, waltzes back past the impulse items, and heads directly to where the white t-shirts are.

Three minutes later we are back in line at the registers, back amongst the hundreds of items we will never need, back face-to-face with the undie-clad cardboard army.  When my innocent friend recalls my racy retort to her from earlier, she erupts into a fit of giggles, which I follow with giggles of my own.  Soon we are laughing to the point of tears.

See?  I do know what she needs after all:  A belly-rolling, tear-inducing, hyperventilating, heartfelt laugh.