Non-basketball diaries

Have you ever noticed how some stores are practically empty during certain sports events? I went to my favorite big-box store to buy cereal and Swiffer wipes. That's all that was on my list, but after putting nearly $100 worth of crap in my cart, I made my way to the front to search for the checkout with the shortest line. I was pleasantly surprised to see that not only were the lines short to check out, there were cashiers with nothing to do flagging down customers. Usually, the lines are really long and the cashiers are in a bad mood. The cashier that attended me was really nice and friendly and when I asked her about the number of customers, she said she noticed there were fewer, etc. and we had a nice conversation. This is very unusual. I rarely even get a, "Hello," or "Yo," or anything, much less a smile.

Then I noticed it was close to 8 p.m. and I started to wonder if people stayed away because they were watching the basketball game. (I'll admit that my favorite shopping day of the year in Austin was the UT/Oklahoma game at the State Fair. Traffic was light and the stores were practically empty.)

Now if only I could limit my shopping trips to once or twice year, that would be quite a feat.