Convenience

I like Mom and Pop convenience stores. When I was a kid, my friends and I all got our allowances on the same day, and we would run to L&L Market at the end of Estates Street to spend it all on candy. 

Those markets still exist. They are different now, in that modern age has eliminated the hum of the compressors for the cooling units, the floors are no longer wooden but clean vinyl or tile. The meat counter in the back of the store is gone, replaced by banks of soft drinks, wine, beer and snack cheeses and cold cuts, and sandwiches made elsewhere, packaged in plastic and cellophane. It’s not quite the same appearance, but the function is the same. Find what you want quickly and be on your way.

One day last week, I thought I’d buy that rare can of soda pop. In my late middle age I don’t drink one of those very often. if the sugar in the real soda is bad for you, so is the artificial sweetener in the diet kind. I don’t keep them in the house, so I'm more likely to avoid them.

There are several small stores on College Way. One is on my regular route between work and home. It’s not a 7-11 or Circle K, but it has locally made sign that says "Sunshine Market," so I imagine these Korean immigrants built their business from the shelves outward. It's great for small, spontaneous purchases, this time $1.55 for a canned soft drink. I tell myself the contents of just one can’t do me too much harm, and the container is recyclable.

I park my car in the space closest to the door and enter, walking past the glass case full of “smoking accessories.” I imagine my grandpa putting his Amphora tobacco into one of those colorful blown glass pipes. Not likely. And as I reach the cooler I see there is a special selection of DVD movies that they keep behind a curtain. It’s slightly open, and I see a customer in there quickly grab the curtain and close it, keeping his head low. I’m not curious about the movies because I have a Netflix account and I don’t rent any from stores.

I chat with one of the owners while I fish coins out of the bottom of my purse. I need a couple pennies more and I know they’re somewhere in the bottom of it under receipts, lipstick and my wallet. I set some of these things on the counter for a moment, and put them back in when I’ve got it right. I hand coins to the cashier, exact change. There’s a guy behind me who is in a hurry to pay for his beer, so I want to get out of his way. It’s only 10:00 a.m. and he looks tense.

I’m back in my car and I pop the top on my Diet Coke. I set it in the upholder and reach into my purse for my car key. Hmmmm…. not there. Maybe I dropped it, so I go back into the store to see if I left it on the counter or if it’s on the floor? I don’t see it, and the cashier says she didn’t see it. Now I look all over the floor of the car, trying to peer between the seats, which of course won’t move without the key in the ignition. 

I don’t have an extra key for this car. That’s something dealers have learned to hold back. Apparently, these new tech keys can be reprogrammed and since they are worth about $250 it makes sense to them to keep as many as they can when they resell a used car. So here’s a heads up when you’re making the deal. Insist on that second key in the deal or you won’t get it.

What to do now? I go back into the store and look again. The cashier says, “That guy who was behind you is a little shady. I’ve kicked him out before. Let’s look at the video tape.” I’m invited into the office and we review it together. It’s so grainy we can’t see much, but we don’t see the key in the picture.

I take another trip out to the car, which is clean and uncluttered. I really don’t think the key is in the car, so we review the tape again, this time with some younger eyes to help us. A son of the owner  magnifies the image.

“Look. The key is in your hand. Here you are setting it down on the counter, and we don’t see you pick it back up.”

On the recording, we watch me leave the store, and then the older Hispanic man with the beer step up, standing very close to the counter. He fidgets with the displays next to the register with his left hand as the cashier rings him up, we can’t see his right hand, and he leaves quickly.

I call 911 on my cellphone. The dispatcher gets a police officer to return my call almost immediately.

“I am at Sunshine Market and I think someone took my key when I left it at the register. The store owner knows him by sight. We’ve reviewed the video tape and we know the key was in my hand when I came in there, and the man behind me may have taken it off the counter.”

And then I think, Holy cow. Some guy has my car key and the house key attached to it. Maybe I’d better go stand by my car until the officer gets here. I get my soda and lean on the cinder block wall, trying to gather my wits. I’m feeling really stupid at this point, having created a stop for an officer who could be working on a more worthy crisis somewhere.

A man pulls up right next to my car in a gray Toyota Camry. He does not get out. He’s just sitting there like he’s waiting for someone. I can’t see his face through the tinted glass. Another man walks around the corner of the building and I see them wave at each other. This doesn’t look right to me, so I take a scrap of paper out of my purse, look directly toward him within a few feet of his car and write down his license plate number. He does not move. In about five minutes the officer arrives and parks on the other side of my car. The man in the Camry promptly backs out and drives away.

I greet the officer and thank him for coming so quickly. I’m sorry I have this situation, it was dumb of me to leave my keys loose. I give him my statement, adding that I was curious about the Camry, and handing him the description and license plate number. He spoke into his shoulder radio and asked for ID on the Toyota.

“I wonder if one of those guys was planning on driving my car away from here?” I asked.

The officer went back to the office and looked at the video tape with the store owner. He asked me to wait outside, so I did. He returned to me in about five minutes, and at just that time, two men pulled into the parking lot driving a tricked out black Cadillac Escalade. They were one older and one younger Hispanic men.

“That’s him!” said the store owner. “That’s the man who was behind her in line." 

The younger man approached us, smiling. In his hand were my keys.

“My father says he picked your key up from the counter because he thought it was his. Just a mistake. When he got home he showed it to me and said, this can’t be mine because it’s from a newer car than my own. And he asked me what he should do because he doesn’t speak English. I drove him here because he doesn’t drive and I could get us here quickly and translate.”

Why would he need a car key? That question went unasked.

The officer looked at the two without smiling and said, “We have him on video tape driving away from the store with his beer purchase.”

I thought, hey, I’m going to look these guys right in the eye and thank them for bringing my key back. You know, doing the right thing, and as if I didn’t suspect it was the second course of action they’d considered. I smiled into their faces, shook their hands, and said, “Thank you so much for your honesty and your quick response. I was very worried.”

And the officer turned to me and said, “Since you are satisfied that your keys are safe, are you done here?”

I said, “Yes, thank you.” And I was dismissed.

But looking over my shoulder, I heard the officer say, “Not you guys yet. Can I see some ID?” And good citizens that they were, they handed their licenses to him with big smiles. Whether there were more questions or any arrests, I do not know. I thought to myself, it is a good thing that identification was made of these two guys. I think Mount Vernon Police like to know about all the do-gooders just as much as the bad guys.

Epilogue:

Of course I re-keyed my house. My keys were only missing about an hour, but I sure couldn’t say where they’d been in that time. And the car key? I called the Ford dealer where I have it serviced, and was informed that yes the key can be copied but that copy can’t be programmed without inserting it into the car’s ignition. Saved me $250, that design detail. 

I’ll never know who owns the gray Camry or who was sitting behind the wheel of that car, but the officer does and that’s just fine with me.