My Own Private....

....Idaho?
Noooooooo.

.....Hell?
Not exactly.

.....CVS?
dingdingding! You win the grand prize of an overnighter locked inside the store!

It was about 9:45 p.m. last night. I arrive at the corner drugstore to pick up some toiletries. I wander around the store looking at universal remotes, pumice scrub for my biscuit feet, infant Tylenol, children's vitamins. I peruse the magazines and "Higher Love" by Steve Winwood & Chaka Khan comes on the overhead. It's a fave, so I am subvocalizing as I drool over Janet Jackson in EBONY magazine. Then I think, "Is My Little One ready for meats?" So I stroll over to the baby food aisle and start reading labels and analyzing 1's, 2's and 3's.

I throw a couple of jars of baby food in with my toiletries and go to check out. As I approach the checkout counter toward the front of the store, the carts are blocking the entrance. No one is around.

All the lights are still on.

The music is still playing. "Saiiiiiilinnnnng takes me away to where I'm going..."

I am totally alone.

It is 10:10 p.m. and everyone is gone but me.

No sweeping.

No re-stocking shelves.

No counting the drawers.

No announcement of "we'll be closing in five minutes. Please gather your items and proceed to the check out counter".

Just me and a whole store all to myself. Even a pharmacy!

I stood there with the hugest smile in disbelief. I have been locked in CVS! Everyone is gone except me!! How could they not see me?! Didn't they notice a car still parked in the parking lot?!

This only happens in the movies! This can't be happening to me! So I strut to the elusive manager's door that is not-so-hidden behind the giant wall of knock-off perfumes. I rap sternly on the door. No answer.

"Well, I have to be close to the money. I have to be somewhere that is close to a sensor that would set off an alarm," I strategize. So I walk towards the carts. Still a radio playing. Hmmm. I walk again to the manger's "office" and there it goes. The in-store alarm is activated. I'll be saved!!

Look out the windows. Traffic going by in it's normal pattern. I call Husband. No answer, but I leave a message. I am giggling at the fact that being stuck in CVS all night can't be all that bad. There's ice cream, foot spa stuff, soda, chips, apple pies, stomach medicine, XANAX, reading material, a bathroom, toothbrushes.

I decide to call a friend of mine who lives in the neighborhood. I wasn't quite sure WHY I was calling her because after all, what could she do? Come and stare at me from the outside? And laugh? I mean, really....

About 10:30, the security company arrived. So did a fire truck. 9-1-1 was called twice on my behalf. I was flattered, but embarrassed. But why should *I* be embarrassed? After all *they* are the ones who didn't secure their store! I mean, really....

My loving friend (who says she needed this wild night out on the town) arrived and we communicate via cell phone looking at each other through the glass. I had to giggle because I could've heard her voice and read her lips just as easily as we were talking on the phone. Why was I even on the phone?? I mean, really.....

I'm waiting for the security guard to call the store manager. They hook up and the store manager lives about an hour away. So a shift supervisor is called to come rescue me from the clutches of "as seen on TV" goods.

Said shift supervisor actually had the nerve to say, "I seen your car in the parking lot and said to myself, 'I hope there ain't no customer still in there'." (I hope I punctuated that correctly!)

So....in the end, the security guard laughingly affirmed that this sort of thing happens quite often (scary). I got in my friend's car who took me to another store to buy my stuff. Then I returned to my own private....home.