Back in the olden days there was only one grocery store that was full
service and it was a town away from where we lived. The grocery store in Santaquin was, and still is, pretty scary. It is dimly lit and poorly laid out. It made you
feel like any food purchase there was like taking a low-rent dance of
death not unlike the salary-man's Fugu indulgence. One night my
mother and I went for a little more extensive shopping but not so
extensive as to justify a trip twice as far to the big box warehouse
grocery store. My mom was a little tired and not as sharp as she
usually was. After we had purchased our milk, bread and cheese and
were walking out to the parking lot my mom read something
written in the dust on the back of a car. It was oddly spaced and
scrawled in an uneven hand. My mom tried to sound it out –
'Eye-do-it' – 'Eye-Die-Ot'. I jumped in to save her from drowning
in a pronunciation miasma and told her, “It says idiot mom.”
She laughed at the irony of that fact and it has become an inside
joke between us and shorthand for when someone is over thinking something trivial.
