My closest convenience store is called 702 MART, only the light on the M has gone out, so at night it becomes 702 ART.
I love 702 MART. It smells like stale cigarettes from the pokie machines by the door. You can’t buy regular wine there: only neon-blue wine-like products. It stocks soft drink by colour, not flavour. Sometimes, when I’m there, strangers give me money and ask me to buy beer or cigarettes and I don’t ask questions, I just do it. Once, driving home, I saw a police helicopter circling what appeared to be my house. When I got closer, I realised it was circling 702 MART. Something about a stolen truck: two people questioned, no arrests made. Last week, in that same car park, I saw a woman in a pink mini-dress carrying a baby doll. I remembered that the Barbie Movie is coming out soon. Can’t wait to see it.
One block east from 702 MART is Charleston Outlet, a thrift store that vandals set on fire in 2020. It was closed for a year. A few weeks before the re-opening, the owners hung large yellow banners outside the store: REOPENING SOON! and re-lit the neon sign that reads Charleston Outlet. Within weeks, part of the sign stopped working. It reads Char Outlet, now.
I’m not saying these signs are a premonition. I’m just saying that sometimes there’s truth in advertising. 702 MART may or may not have the coldest beer in town, but to me, it is ART.