Dear Dude,

I want to say we've all been in your shoes and really, we have, but your shoes were particularly uncomfortable that day when you found yourself behind me in the grocery store line-up after the cashier charged me for 83 plastic bags instead of just 3 especially when she tried to void them but some till code error inspired that machine to make a noise like an airport security violation (just enough to make us all feel uncomfortable and somehow guilty) and yes, you and I both knew it was inevitable, she had to locate a manager to void the transaction because the entry-level cashier was not privy to the override code needed to void it herself and so we waited while she tried to CSI a more senior employee and then she finally did and did I mention only two tills were open (?) and so the dead-on-the-inside manager came and was going to void the transaction but that's when she discovered that the #8 till button was stuck and of course, she needed to void 80 bags, not 79 and thus she needed the #8 OF COURSE SHE DID and thus even with the middle upper management void code she would be unable to void what we all so desperately NEEDED her to void so she tried to use her fingernails to dislodge the button and then probably neither of us would have predicted that the button would actually pop off the till and so then the manager lady attempted to refasten the #8 button several ways while making a joke I couldn't concentrate on because my brain was in CTRL ALT DEL mode because by then it was oh I don't know 38 minutes later or maybe the store had closed already oh I don't know because I glanced at you and noticed your head was hanging all droopy-like over your jar of pickles and whatever else and the cashier apologized and I thanked her but I sort of wanted to start laughing like a maniac, you know what I mean, that sort of laughing that's intended to reestablish sanity because inside it's suddenly like time has stopped and this is the moment when all the weight of one's incredible powerlessness in the face of not adversity but the profound overwhelming mundane-ness of the world settles like asbestos into one's lungs and then finally, FINALLY the #8 button was repaired and she voided the transaction and dude, I'm serious, you deserve some sort of award for choosing the worst, THE ABSOLUTE WORST grocery store line-up in the absolutely history of line-ups because dude, no one should be that unlucky, like SERIOUSLY and I felt your pain, that pain emanating from you like heat waves off pot-hole ridden asphalt but you persevered man, you persevered and you bought those pickles dude, you BOUGHT THOSE PICKLES without complaining or weeping or any whiff of whatever terrible inner goings-on were surely tumbling inside you like wet clothes in vent-less dryer!

And that, dude, is why you are my hero.