So I was shop-orama guy last night... over at wallmart to get winter boots for Geo... It's like... 8:00 pm... the store is hoping... as usual. I'm going through the cash... and we're to the "swipe your card sir" part... and this very seriously strange silence happens. register girl and I look at one another ... We wait... 1, 2, 3, 4, ... I'm counting in my head... and I get to 10. It ends... and she comments "that was really weird... " and she's looking around the store. I concure and thank her and am on my way... Absolutely agog at the strangeness of the moment. It was like the muzak kinda toned down, and by some very odd quirk of circumstance, every conversation, clanging shopping cart... everything... seemed to stop. As if the complex wave pattern of sounds washing across the store were suddenly met by counterpoints to each element of the pattern and cancelled one another out. I would have writen it off as just weird but register girl noticed too... A very x-files moment.