"What is this?"
"It's a checkout scanner, sir. Each product has a universal price bar code somewhere on the package - you see, on the side of that tin of caviar? - yes, well, anyway, you pass the bar code over this and a laser reads it and feeds the product information directly to the cash register at the checkout counter -"
"Checkout counter?"
"Uhh...yes, sir. After you've chosen all the products you wish to buy, you go to the front of the shoe store, where a friendly man or woman will add up the price of all your purchases. Then, you pay for all the things you bought and go home to use them. That's what a shopping centre is all about."
"Shopping centre?"
"You don't know what a shop - okay, look. A shopping centre is a large store with a wide variety of foods and other household products. People come to them to buy the products they need to keep their homes going - shopping centres are convenient because they have most of what people need in one location."
"So, we're in a shopping centre. Right now."
"That is correct, sir."
"Wow."
The Secret Service men surrounding the checkout counter betrayed no emotion during this exchange. Maybe they thought the President was too busy with important matters of state to worry about such mundane matters as grocery shopping. Maybe they were thinking of what they were expected to bring home that evening. Either way, they didn't give anything away.
Olivia Hochstadtler suppressed the urge to sigh. She had been with In Touch, Incorporated for several years, and was generally acknowledged as an expert in helping politicians understand the lives of common people. She hadn't worked with a President since Gerald Ford, however; Ronald Reagan was a write-off who was popular because he had no contact with reality, not in spite of it, and George Bush was too arrogant during his first term to think he needed to be in touch with common folks.
Times change.
"Have you ever had to go shopping?" Hochstadtler asked the President. One Secret Service agent, sensing hostility behind the question, moved towards her as if to wrestle her to the ground. With a wave of his hand, the President stopped him.
"Sure, I shop," the President said. "For diamonds, yachts, oil companies..."
"But, what about the necessities?" Hochstadtler insisted. "What about food and drink?"
"You don't think diamonds, yachts and oil companies are necessities?"
"What about the other necessities, then?"
"Oh, we have servants to look after things like that," the President glibly remarked.
Hochstadtler cut to the heart of the matter. "Sir, how can you pass laws and develop economic and social programmes which affect all Americans when you have never experienced the kinds of things most Americans experience in their lives?"
"That's why I have advisers," he pointedly replied.
The obvious next question was: what if your advisers are as inoculated from reality as you are? But, Hochstadtler felt her store of good will rapidly diminishing and didn't feel she could press the point. "Do you have any other questions?" she asked instead.
"Sure do," the President answered. "This shopping centre thing - kinda big. Pretty big. Lots of products and stuff. How do people - you know - find what they're looking for?"
"The products are arranged by aisle, sir. As you can tell by the signs over each of the aisles, one is devoted to cereals, another to canned goods, another to kosher meats..."
"Very clever."
"Yes, sir."
The President nervously eyed the shoppers gathering outside the security perimeter. It wasn't that they seemed hostile; as a matter of fact, everybody in the crowd appeared to be excited by his presence, except for one woman wearing a "Perot for President" button. No, they were nice enough; it was just, well, they weren't his people.
"Okay," the President said, clapping his hands. "Learned a lot today - learning good - education President and all that. Mustn't linger - lingering not good. Move on to new experiences - new opportunities to learn. What's next?"
"Umm, tonight, we'll be seeing a movie."
"In a theatre?"
"That's right, sir."
"Don't you think we might be - I don't know - going too quickly?"
