The List

Short Story Day 51 of 365

Illustration by geralt on Pixabay

As Basil grew older, he found himself relying on notecards and messages in his phone to help him remember simple things. Even a small grocery list was getting more difficult to remember.

But, more often than Basil would admit, he was proud and hated using those cheating devices, as he called them.

His wife sent him to the store for eggs, 2% milk, bacon, wheat bread, turkey lunch meat, mayo, and diet soda.

Easy enough.

With one repetition of the list, it was sealed in his head.

After changing into shorts, Basil repeated the list six times on the way to the store, “Eggs, milk, bacon, bread, lunch meat, mayo, and pop. Eggs, milk, bacon, bread, lunch meat, mayo, and pop. Eggs, milk, bacon, bread, lunch meat, mayo, and pop. Eggs, milk, bacon, bread, lunch meat, mayo, and pop.” He didn’t want to keep repeating them, but he had nothing else to distract him, so the list kept circulating through his memory.

By the time he arrived at the store, Basil was putting a beat to it, so that it just flowed from his lips. A famous rapper he would never be, but he put forth the effort just for this list.

He grabbed a cart and repeated the list twice before entering the store. Why hadn’t he thought of this method before? Who needed paper and pen when he could rely solely on musical tricks?

His voice was now a whisper so he wouldn’t frighten the other shoppers. “Eggs, milk, bacon, bread, lunch meat, mayo, and pop. Eggs, milk, bacon, bread, lunch meat, mayo, and pop.”

“This is a piece of cake,” Basil said out loud. “Hmm, I’ll just toss in one of those slices for the trouble.” Triple chocolate devil’s food cake. One slice would suffice and he would earn a few extra points with his wife for the effort.

Basil had finished his shopping in less than 10 minutes. Before arriving at the self-checkout, he reconciled the list in his head against what was actually in the cart.

Everything checked out, plus the cake.

After scanning the SuperShopperCard on his keychain to get all the possible discounts, he scanned the items and placed each into a plastic bag.

Then Basil reached for his wallet to pay with his credit card.

The wallet was missing. Nothing in the right rear pocket, which is where he always put his wallet. It wasn’t in his other pocket either.

Nothing.

In his rush to get to the store, he had switched from his jeans to shorts. but the wallet didn’t make the transfer. Everything else did, but the wallet didn’t.

Basil approached the self-checkout monitor clerk and said, “I forgot my wallet, but will return for the eggs, milk, bacon, bread, lunch meat, mayo, and pop in 15 minutes.”

“Ok,” the clerk said, having never heard someone dictate a list of items as part of a monotone chant before. “If you say so.”