I spend way too much time in Wal-Mart. Money, too, come to think of it. Whenever you become familiar with the employees of a big-box store, you are there too often. I mention this because we have a cashier buddy at Wal-Mart now. We met him a couple of months ago on a red-letter day for Alex. He was getting a new video game and he'd just started his martial arts classes.
As we were checking out Alex was fairly bouncing with all the excitement happening in his life. And you know, he has to share that with those around him, so he struck up a conversation with our cashier. It turned out that his name was Alex as well. He's probably a college student and he's very nice. They started discussing video games. The older Alex had played the one that my Alex was buying so they compared notes. Then they moved on to martial arts. When he was younger the checker Alex also took martial arts. It was like old home week. We paid up and took our bags to the car. Then came the conversation on the way home.
"Mom, that guy's name was Alex, and MY name is Alex."
"Yes."
"He likes video games, and I like video games."
"Uh-huh." (I really wasn't paying a lot of attention at this point - not seeing where it was going yet.)
"I take martial arts, and when he was young, HE took martial arts."
"That's right."
"MOM! I think that guy is future ME!"
I really didn't know how to respond to that one. I would like to note for the record, though, that I did have a glimmer of what was coming right before the big reveal. I'm pretty sure Alex is just messing with me and doesn't actually believe the older Alex is future him. I think. He also wants to modify my car so that it has rocket/missile launchers on it. You have to admit that would come in handy in traffic. I sure don't take my cashiers for granted anymore. I've seen Future Alex a few times since then and I can't help but smile. At least he's neat, polite, kind to children, and is holding down a job!
