The Story of Scale and The Great Snake Sale

Image by author

As one would expect of an avid walker, I was walking the other day. As one wouldn’t expect, I came across a rather odd store on the side of the road, and it was having a sale. But as anyone should, I stopped in to see what I could get for cheap.

The shop was either quite small or expansive, depending on how you looked at it. The store had no walls or roof, but did have a floor, which was also the pebbly grass area situated at the corner of the intersection of two neighborhood streets. It was a lovely setting — despite no roof or walls — with leafy trees everywhere, a lovely breeze, and an exquisite sun peeking here and there.

The shop owners were three young girls —the tallest, a bit over four feet high, the shortest about 3.75 feet. Give or take. They were friendly and waved me over to see their merchandise. I had no money on me, but the thought did occur to me I could run (aka fast-walk) the 2.5 miles back to my house and get money if needed — a distance I’d be delighted to add to my mileage tally for the week. Because, obviously.

As I approached the store, I saw the shortest of the three shop owners holding up a small sign and wiggling it for extra-marketing effect.

“Hi!” I said, ever the friendly walker, ever the cheapo consumer. “What’s this?” I asked, pointing at the merchandise behind them. There was quite a bit there, depending on whether you were the size of an ant or a human. In total, it was one bucket sitting on a step stool. As I got closer, I saw the multi-colored feature word on the marketing sign — Snacks. Oh, yum, I thought. I could use some snacks.

But the mind is a funny thing. Its job is to quickly fill in what it doesn’t quite know — with narrative, guesses, prior data, assumptions. It’s a speedy predictive machine.

The sign actually said Snake.

I’ll leave you to guess what the merchandise was — in the bucket.

“You’re selling snacks?” I asked.

“No,” the middle one said, “We’re selling a snake.”

What the heck?

“Are you serious?” I asked, now interested because, frankly, I’d never been to a roadside shop that sold snakes. I might never be at a roadside shop again that sells only one snake. I peered over the edge of the bucket to check out the sale item. There was a smattering of dirt, a handful of leaves — and where was the snake? I looked hard. Oh. Right there. A tiny little guy — a worm snake. They'd found him in their yard.

It was very hard not to laugh out loud. Don’t ever laugh at a shop owner. It’s not nice.

“So, how much you asking for the snake?” I was curious. You never know if one day you’ll decide to sell snakes on the side of the road. Knowing market trends is necessary.

“Twenty dollars.”

WHAT?? Trés pricey! The thing was no larger than a gummy worm, and a skinny one at that.

“That’s a lot of money,” I said. Then the smallest one spoke up. I think she was their top salesperson.

“We’ll come down to ten.”

Now we’re talking. A sale. Half off.

“Well, I don’t have any money on me, but maybe I could go home and get some. I’ll think about it. Does the snake have a name, by chance?”

There was a pause. I don’t think they’d covered this point in their marketing meetings. Finally, the tallest one spoke.

“Scale. Its name is Scale.”

Of course. Made perfect sense.

“That’s a great name. Love it. Well, nice to meet you, ladies. I’m going to walk for a bit. I’ll think about Scale. See ya!” I walked off as they waved goodbye. Now my task was to try to find the parents of these girls because, as a mother of mid-twenty-year-olds, I know how valuable a photo of such a snake store will be in the future to them. It was imperative to my mind. Off I trudged in search.

The first guy I ran into was in his driveway fiddling with something or other.

“Hello!” I hollered from the street. “Do you by any chance know if any young girls live around here?” He looked at me, sizing me up, but as I’m accustomed to, people seem to find me as intimidating and dangerous as, well, a gummy worm snake.

“There, there, there, and there,” he said, pointing to houses all around the neighborhood. I was dumbstruck, because over where I live, it’s boys who live “there, there, there, and there.”

I explained my situation — that I was hoping to find the parents of the store owners so they might go to the corner and take photos of their kids. The whole thing was hilarious, adorable, dear, and a necessity for the historical record to have permanently filed. This man was down for the plan. He suspected which family it might be. He volunteered to go down to the snake store and witness the event. I carried on down the street.

Just then, a guy came pedaling up on a bike.

“Hey, have you by any chance seen three girls around here?”

What were the chances? I was elated.

“Oh, boy, have I seen three girls. Are you their dad?” He was.

After I told him the story about the bucket, the $20, and Scale, he reached into his pocket and yanked out his wallet.

“Here,” he said, thrusting a twenty-dollar bill at me, “Can you go back there and buy the snake?”

Now, I’m going to be honest. If I’d known all this time that all you need to do to get free money thrust at you is to locate a snake store, find the dad of the owners, and reveal the store’s location to him, I’d have gone into that line of work long ago.

Long story short, I did indeed buy Scale. I took the bucket with me, dumped Scale into the woods, and returned the bucket to the father on the down-low, who rode past me later. Then, I logged a funny, endearing story into long-term memory, hopefully forever.

My best advice is this. Go out there and walk or meander. Say hi to people. Talk to them. Ask about their wares or their lives — or my favorite, the weather. Strike up conversation, get involved somehow — even as a stranger — putting forth your most authentic, appreciative self. Be real. Be a person.

Needless to say, support local businesses.

If you do, you might come to own a worm snake — at 50% off — and build upon your knowledge that humans are good and connection makes that narrative ever more a finished, though endless, story.

The End, but hopefully never so.

---

Have a nice week, friends. :-)