Overheard While Buying Tires in Willits
by Katie Norton
She breezes through the door, cellphone to ear, with the confidence of the affluent. Can you look at my left rear tire, the dashboard indicator says it's low. Back to her phone, Oh, Marsha, hi, how are you, you gorgeous WOMAN, you!? Hey, I'm on my way to Cheel Lay, exaggerating the Spanish pronunciation, to visit my grandchildren. Wow she doesn't look old enough to have grandchildren and why are they in Chile? I'm flying out of SFO tonight at 10, arrive Houston at 5:00 a.m. with a 2 hour layover, then a flight to Caracas, another 4 hour layover, then finally a flight to Santiago. To visit my grandchildren. Excuse me, Ma'am. Yes. Your rim has a huge crack in it. Can you put on the spare? Well, you only have one of those little spares. Will that get me to SFO? Noncommittal Hmmm, mouth turned down. I wonder if it's a bad omen to begin a long journey with a problem. Undaunted, she pays and sweeps out the door, gabbing away. Enter three citified gangstas who limped into the driveway in a dust-caked black BMW 750Li, fashionably thin tennis shoe tires now torn up (from driving off-road to the marijuana patch it goes without saying). Sorry, we don't have those in stock, suppressed eye roll. Wendy Williams cackles on the waiting room TV but this show is better.
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Author's Note
My attempt at 250 word fiction. Went to buy tires last week. Thought it would be boring. Was not. Warning to people who talk loudly on their cell phones: you are fair game.
Good sketch of a character --The phrase "confidence of the affluent," coming at the end of the first sentence, nailed her personality. "Huge crack in the rim" tells us she didn't even look at the tire. The change of scene to the gangstas is effective to carry us on to the end. I think the last sentence is perfect. Only criticism is I didn't get what the "Sorry, we don't have those in stock, suppressed eye roll" is about. What's not in stock? Whose eyes are rolling, and what does a "suppressed" eye roll look like?
Joe Alan, to clarify: that was the clerk talking. Fancy tires for a Beamer are not in stock in a small town. A suppressed eye roll is when you are dying to roll your eyes but you can't because you have to be polite to the customer.
Love this. Fav.
i love the last line. Actually I love the whole thing. Your gift work is in your details.
You nailed that feeling of, while standing in line or sitting in a waiting room, being subjected to someone's self-absorbed phone call. The way they talk too loud, drip personal details, treat the person they are there to see--clerk, mechanic, receptionist--like an interruption. (I find this behavior both ugly and fascinating.)
I love how the story shifts to the next customer and could imagine it going on to the next one after that. I love how different the characters are and how their cars, their situations and their characters say so much about who they are. *