The Pee Zone

My cousin Chris wore multicolored hair, checkered tennis shoes, pink wristbands. I had a black knit cap snugged down to my eyebrows, five days of stubble, a black pea coat. We wandered a cavernous department store to kill time and (maybe) buy something.

“Now why do I get the feeling that if one of my fellow associates came around, they'd tell me to watch you guys?”

My cousin Chris and I looked up from our movie browsing to see the Electronics Department manager standing over us.

“It's an appearance thing,” the manager went on, “people look a certain way, everybody assumes they're trouble. I don't agree with it.”

“I have to do the same thing at my work,” Chris said. “Don't worry about it.” We were left with the feeling that we'd been subtly warned despite the benevolent tone—fine with us; we can deal with being watched. We love attention.

I spent a great deal of time in the chair aisle, unfolding chairs and stools into the middle of the aisle one at a time, using exaggerated facial expressions to indicate approval or displeasure. If anyone was watching us via camera, they know my taste in foldable chairs.

Finally we decided to grab a late-night meal—but when Chris and I attempted to move on to the grocery area, we found yellow rope blocking the way. Store associates walked the perimeter, which must have encompassed at least a dozen aisles. What was going on?

We soon realized that we weren't roped out, but in.

Chris noticed it first: in a central corridor between rows of aisles, no more than six inches from my right boot, there stretched an unbroken twenty-foot line of yellowish-brown pee.

Great. We were the only remaining customers in the Pee Zone. I hope we were being watched while we browsed, because that's the only way our good names could be preserved beyond doubt.

I guess that's what I get for dressing like the kind of guy who'd pee in a department store.