People Watching at Wal-Mart

On Monday I went to Wal-Mart to get more prom pictures developed at the one-hour photo center. Since it's a 15-minute drive from my house I decided to hang out there rather than come home and go back again. I bought a puzzle book (one of my addictions), a package of dish cloths (because we needed them, of course) and a pack of gum, grabbed lunch at the in-store McDonald's and sat to ... ostensibly ... work on the puzzles while I ate. I use this kind of thing as an excuse to people-watch.

People watching is the ultimate exercise in character development. I've seen a great number of strangers in my lifetime whom I found interesting enough to make notes on them, so that I have quite the collection of descriptions - if I need a particular character for a book I just go to my notes and pick one out.

Prime example: There was a guy sitting next a few tables over - probably early 40s at the oldest, rather blessed in the size department, who had a young man with him. I couldn't quite figure out whether the kid was the man's son, nephew, ward or just what, but the guy kept calling the kid "Brother" and used him as his beck and call errand boy. "Brother, grab me another packet of ketchup, please." "Get me a little more Coke, Brother?" "Brother, go ask if you have to pay extra for more yogurt." It was fascinating. He was polite about it, but I couldn't help thinking, dude, can you not get up and do it yourself? Now, in the guy's defense, and knowing I shouldn't be so judgmental, I didn't observe whether he had any physical limitations. But he qualified for at least some mental note-taking. Sometimes you have to be careful about studying someone and then writing things down, lest they get suspicious.

There are several attributes I study in people:

1. Appearance. Hair color/length/style, clothing (or lack thereof, in the case of most teenage girls), accessories (purses, briefcases, electronic gadgets, etc.), grooming.
2. Attitude. I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover but as I am the mother of teenagers I can pretty much spot a 'tude at a glance, and sometimes you can just look at a person and see that "I am the bomb, just ask me" mindset. You can also see the "I am the dregs of society and you don't want to have anything to do with me" self-loathing in some people. It's sad, but you really can build some great characters with this kind of ammunition. Really.
3. Affluence. Hard to miss. Not that I can identify Prada or Gucci on sight. I'm more of a JCPenney kind of gal myself. But you see these women dressed to the nines and you can tell they shelled out some major bucks on their clothes. I ask you, why would anyone pay $200 for a pair of shoes?? Have you not heard of Payless, people? My apologies to those of you with the Imelda Marcos Complex (you know who you are). I have a friend (who shall remain nameless so as not to sully her stellar reputation - unless she decides to 'fess up) who is a recovering shoe addict.

Good Lord, I'm so low maintenance I'm boring. Probably why I draw characters from real people instead of my paltry imagination.

The infamous BMWs meet tonight. As I have my pages ready (just need to print) and it's raining to beat the band I'm going to crawl back downstairs and spend a little quality time with the three cats and one Mr. James Stewart. And a cup of French vanilla cappuccino.

Do something good for yourself today.

=) JB