When buying your stuff
and they offer you some stamps,
just say "No, thank you."
It happened so quickly, I didn't realize what I was doing until the mailman was already dead. I didn't even know he was a mailman when I suffocated him at the check out line. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
It all started when I was at Walmart buying new $13 sneakers to replace my worn out $13 sneakers that I'd bought four weeks before. The wrinkled old lady with wrist braces picked up the shoes and deftly scanned them and threw them into a plastic bag, winking at me with her one good eye. I was vaguely aware that there was an impatient man standing behind me as I fumbled my debit card out of my wallet. The cashier asked in a creaky voice, "Do you need any ice, stamps or Toblerone chocolate today, young man?"
I pushed the button on the credit card machine indicating that, in fact, I did not want any cash back on my transaction. Chuckling, I said to her, "Sure, give me a 10 pound bag of ice and a bar of your finest Toblerone. But hold the stamps. Stamps are for suckers. I do everything by online billpay."
I heard the man behind me give an irritated "harrumph" and I glanced back at him. He was in a dirty "Gig 'Em" shirt and a ratty pair of sweat pants that strained to stay up on his considerable waist line. He was scratching at something at his neck. Ignoring him, the cashier said, "Okay, but I didn't have that on your first transaction, son. So you'll need to swipe your card again." I smiled an grabbed at my back pocket again for my wallet.
As I opened my wallet, I looked up at the cashier and commented playfully, "Oh, you sure know how to ply my money from my bank account, you sly minx."
She smiled and winked at me again, but apparently the man behind me was impatient. In a gravelly, too-quiet whisper he said harshly, "Get on with it, jerk! We've got places to go!" He grabbed at my wallet and pulled my card out.
"Hey," I shouted and shuffled back a small step. But something had possessed the guy. His face was a torn expression of rage and fury. He was determined to swipe my card and finish my transaction for me. I pushed him back and grabbed for my card with my other hand. As my left hand found his throat, I felt something hard and plastic there. But in the confusion, I didn't think anything about it. I snatched my card from him and shoved him back hard by the throat. I quickly put my wallet and card into the bag with my shoes and said to the cashier, "Forget the candy and ice." Turning to the guy on the ground, I said, "I don't know what your problem is, guy. But you need to simmer down. Just simmer down now." Feeling like I'd gotten off a good one liner, I grabbed my bag, turned and marched out of the store.
Mommio and I were woken up at 12:45 that night to sirens and police lights outside the front of the house. Someone was banging on the door shouting, "This is the police! You need to open the door right now!" Neither of us had any clue what was going on. Before we could get to the door, the policy broke it in, snapping the lock and chain. Four cops tackled me, knocking the wind out of me and cuffing my hands behind my back.
My trial was short. It turns out the man behind me was a mailman. He must have been upset about my comments about stamps being "for suckers." He had a tracheotomy and breathed through a hole in his throat. The evidence at trial showed that, when I shoved him back, I plugged his breathing hole with debris and gunk from his dirty shirt. He suffocated shortly after I left the store. He was dead before the ambulance arrived. Worse yet, the cashier was his sister. She told the jury that I was taunting the man, making fun of his tracheotomy. Through crocodile tears, she lied and said that I intentionally poked my finger into his breathing hole and laughed at him as he struggled for air. She denied that he ever tried to grab my wallet. After the trial, my lawyer discovered that she was the sole heir of her brother's fortune, who had millions of dollars buried in pickle jars his back yard.
Could she have goaded me on purpose? Do they even still offer stamps at the check out line? I'll never know the answer because I'll never have my freedom to go shopping at Walmart again. I was convicted of second degree murder and given life in prison.
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