TEMPLE, Texas (GlossyNews) — A jury of seven men and five women are listening to eyewitness testimony in the trial of impatient businessman Ron Martin, who battered 90-year-old Doris Sloth with a bag of frozen okra after she took twenty minutes writing a check to pay for groceries at the local Super Walmart.
The prosecution’s key witness in the case offered the following testimony:
“I parked my grocery cart behind Mrs. Sloth because she only had a few items in her basket and it was the express lane. As I waited for Mrs. Sloth to check out, I got lost in a headline about Oprah being a lesbian or some such thing, and after a few minutes I noticed Mrs. Sloth was still unloading her items. I think there was a couple of cans of cat food and a bag of Werther’s caramels. I also remember that Mr. Martin rolled up behind me and then somebody behind him, but I don‘t remember what they looked like.
“When the clerk told Mrs. Sloth the amount owed, she began fishing around in her purse for something and pulled out her check book and a pen. That’s when I heard Mr. Martin say under his breath, ‘Here we go.’
“At that time, Mrs. Sloth began to very carefully write out the check, and the clerk told her all she had to do was give her a blank check and she would run it into the check reader thing. Since Mrs. Sloth had already written on the check, she wrote the word “void” across it and carefully entered it as voided in her check register. Then, she seemed to lose track of things and slowly, and I mean slowly, closed her check book, put it in her purse and started to walk out. The clerk stopped her before she went very far. Then Mrs. Sloth backed up, reopened her purse and began fishing around for her checkbook again. I heard Mr. Martin sigh really loudly about that time.
“Mrs. Sloth neatly creased the next check along the perforation, pulled it out of the check book very carefully and handed it to the clerk, and the clerk ran it through the reader. Then Mrs. Sloth told the clerk that she needed ten dollars in quarters and twenty dollars in cash on top of the amount owed. There was some confusion over how this would be accomplished, so a floor manager was called in to sort things out. I don’t know how long it took, but I remember I read the entire article about Oprah being a lesbian and 25 tips on how to make my boyfriend have better orgasms while I waited for it all to get done. All the other lanes were getting crowded and there was nowhere else to go, or I would have just moved. I could see Mr. Martin in my peripheral vision shifting from one foot to another and becoming more agitated by the second.
“When it came time for Mrs. Sloth to make the electronic signature, it was like she was taking a final in calligraphy class, because I’ve never seen anyone sign one of those things with such detail. She was still dotting the ‘i’ in her first name when I heard Mr. Martin scream, ‘GODDAMMIT!’ Then out of nowhere I see this bag of frozen okra fly over my shoulder and almost knock Mrs. Sloth’s head off.”
During the eyewitness testimony, Mr. Martin repeatedly looked at his watch while Mrs. Sloth sat dozing in the front row with her head held upright by a neck brace.