Life is Good

On By tnkerrIn Daily Prompt, Random Scribbles, writing

Daily Prompt; Tourist Trap

 What’s your dream tourist destination — either a place you’ve been and loved, or a place you’d love to visit? What about it speaks to you?

 

Agnes straightened up and pushed her glasses back up on her nose. She took a moment and turned all the way around looking at the shop – her shop. Five years ago, when the Bumpersteins had decided to retire and move to Gary Indiana, a place they had always wanted to visit, they offered her an opportunity to buy the shop. She had not believed her good fortune and had jumped at the chance. She sent them a payment every month.

Agnes had worked for the Bumpersteins for seventeen years, worked in this souvenir shop across the boardwalk from the beach that whole time. When they left Agnes had moved into the apartment above the shop where the Bumpersteins had lived. She had redone the floors and painted the walls. New cabinets and a dishwasher had been installed as part of the kitchen remodel. There were two bedrooms but she only needed one to sleep in. She chose to sleep in the back bedroom. The one in the front had a view of the beach. When she wasn’t working she spent most of her waking hours in there, looking out the window, or in the kitchen preparing modest meals.

Agnes had changed very little about the shop. She still sold trinkets, t-shirts, and things that tourists needed; snacks, sodas, beer, wrap-around skirts, calendars, and memory cards for cameras. She had changed the name of the shop though. It was now known as “The Tourist Trap” where it had formerly been called “Bumperstein’s Market”.

Agnes worked seven days a week. She opened at 6:00 am sharp. At 2:00 pm Cindy would come in, Agnes had been pleased when she agreed to stay, and Cindy would keep the store open till 10:00. There was a steady rotation of high school kids who would work on weekends and after school, cleaning, stocking, and the like.

Life is good, she thought to herself as she put the feather duster under the counter and picked up her keys. She turned the sign, so that it read open, unlocked the front door and held it for her first customers of the day, a young family with two kids under ten. They got snack foods, tanning lotion, an inflatable raft, and a newspaper.

“Where you folks from?” she asked the young mother.

“Indiana – Gary Indiana.”

“Really? I have good friends who live there.”

 

 

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