Don't Panic

Last night's impromptu snack run came with a slightly Douglas Adams twist.

Every week or so, I make the two-block walk to the Plaid Pantry, a 24-hour convenience store. I usually do so at night, because of less traffic and shorter lines. I get the feeling the night clerks are getting to know me pretty well, but even they've got some surprises once in a while.

On this occasion, I walked in with one of those environmentally-friendly library tote bags, since I was stopping in after dropping off some library materials. When checking out, the clerk asked if I wanted a bag. No thank you, I had told him, I was carrying my own already. And without skipping a beat, he gestured towards the plastic bag that he would have pulled from the rack, saying "But with this bag, you could go suffocate a dolphin!"

His on-break co-worker began to argue that dolphins were cooler than he was giving credit for, and at the end of his argument, mentioned something about how "you don't need to worry about them anyway; they're all going to leave once they build that interstellar bypass."

I finished paying for my goods and left, but not before seeing them off with a casually understated "So long, and thanks for all the fish."