Blump-Blumps

I eased my aching joints onto a sort of park bench between the sliding doors and the registers at Lowes while Dottie paid for our latest treasure trove of stuff to fix up the house. The last of my bones where muttering their complaints when two employees came in the doors talking business. I hadn’t yet gotten into my usual dissociative state when I caught a piece of the conversation.

The short, plump, white girl said to the black one with the clipboard, “We partitioned them for the blump-blumps but it looks like we ain’t gonna get ‘em.”

The black girl must have looked as puzzled as I felt because then the white girl explained. “Well Alex got runned over and that customer got runned over and we thought if we partitioned for blump-blumps, it might slow ‘em down a little. There was a bit of silence and she studied the black girl’s face and followed up with, “I recon we ain’t gonna get ‘em ‘cause they came down here and surveyed and I ain’t seen no blump-blumps yet.”

Silence.

“You know, Blump-Blumps. Cars go blump-blump over ‘em.

One of my notorious laughs got started in my feet, surged up my thighs through my lungs and splashed all over the Lowes big box store and both the women caught it as it rushed by them into the rafters. Shorty said, “Oh, you know, we petitioned the main office for speed bumps.”

That petitioned me for a fresh roll of laughter and the black girl turned looking at me with the most amused look on her face when I delivered. “I couldn’t figure out what kind of language that was," she said.

Dottie rolled the shopping cart to the doors and I bounced up and said, “Neither could I.”