1. The parking
lot.
The uncontrolled
behavior starts before I even get in the store. I’m one of those who doesn’t
like to park anywhere near the entrances to a retail establishment, because
some drivers are incredibly stupid and inconsiderate and I don’t want them
maneuvering a vehicle into the slot next to mine. (I happen to prefer that my
own car not have dings, dents, hanging bumpers, and paint scrapes that were not
part of the factory finish.) So I park in Brazil, and then I walk.
Trouble is, this
lengthy hike (I make sure I have plenty of water and a snack or two) means that
I now have to walk past all of the people I was trying to avoid. People backing
up without looking, idiots trying to turn into a slot while you’re still
strolling past it, random children who have been psychologically destroyed by
the non-purchase of a toy, and cretins who think belching and grabbing at their
junk at the same time is some type of art form. By the time I actually get to the store door, I’ve
got a negative attitude because I’m already tired and our society is clearly
doomed.
2. The shopping
cart selection.
Some folks just
have an eye for spotting a properly-functioning merchandise conveyance. They
waltz up to the shopping-cart petting zoo at the front of the store, not even
hesitating as they make their decision, and then manage to choose a cart that
will function beautifully for the next two hours, never once making the tiniest
squeak or doing that annoying thing where some of the wheels lock up like you
just ran over an armadillo and then those wheels don’t roll right ever again.
Me? I can’t even
get the carts to separate. My first choice is always the one that has somehow
become welded-for-life to the spooning partner behind it. I can jerk and rip
and tear but the carts refuse to stop copulating. The same thing happens with
the next several random picks. By the time I finally get one of the carts free,
I’m sweating and cussing and slightly foaming at the mouth, causing small
children to tug on their mommy’s skirt and promise to be good the rest of their
lives if they can just be taken away from this place with the scary man.
And, naturally,
the cart I finally liberate is one that has had a hard life of drug and alcohol
abuse. Only one of the four wheels even tries
to work, with the other three digging in their heels or stubbornly trying to
head in a direction that does not appeal to me in the least. It’s like trying
to push a Buick across the bottom of the ocean. And the noise all of this
makes? First-responders often show up and hand out evacuation guidelines.
3. I can’t get
from Point A to Point B and then calmly find a check-out station.
Nope. I end up
running all wild-eyed from one end of the store to the other 400 times. To be
fair, I always have the best intentions of following a plan (non-perishables
first, refrigerated next, frozen after that, and alcohol as a reward at the
end), but I rarely stick to it. I just somehow lose my focus and my sense of
logic, and I often have to make repeat trips to the exact same part of the same
aisle. (Because grabbing both peas AND corn during the same pass makes entirely
too much sense, right?)
4. The cheese
section.
This is one of
those spots where I completely lose my mind. I’m not even supposed to be eating
this stuff, cholesterol issues and all, but before I even realize what I’m
doing I have all manner of shredded, sliced, cubed, bricked and processed
cheese piled into my cart. I always get too much. We won’t even be able to eat
half of it before it expires, and cheese doesn’t expire for a really long time. It’s not like some of the other
emotionally-weak dairy products that can expire before you pull into your
driveway. (On the flip side of the dairy-longevity spectrum, although I don’t
think it’s really dairy, is that odd soy milk stuff. We drink it and all, I
actually like the taste, but have you ever taken a gander at the expiration
dates? I have mortgages that will be
paid off before a half-gallon of that mess will actually turn. What’s going on
there?)
5. I am the one
that irritates you in the frozen food section.
Full confession:
I hold the doors open too long until everything fogs up and you can’t see
anything inside the units, which makes people frustrated and bitter and not apt
to speak kindly of you. I can’t help it. See, I eat a lot of those low-fat,
low-cal diet things. (More of that high-cholesterol issue, and my weight issue,
and the general issue of not wanting to go into cardiac arrest as I reach for
another triple burger with a side of lard fries at a drive-thru mega-chain.) I
realize the healthiest thing is to simply prepare my own meals using fresh and
organic produce, exercise daily, practice yoga, avoid additives and donate to
the World Wildlife Federation, but let’s get real. Who has time for that?
So I eat frozen
things that have been sucked dry of all possible fat and any possible chance of
being celebrated for the exquisiteness of the cuisine. But since I have to make
the best of it, I try to pick out entrees with the most promise for actual
flavor. Which means I stand there with the door open, pondering, inadvertently creating
the ghostly, irritating frost layer that drives other people crazy as I try to
decide between the Garlic Chicken Surprise and the Fiesta Fish Frenzy. Mea
culpa.
6. The chip aisle.
I love potato chips.
Worship them. But they don’t love me. I can just glance at a bag and I gain two
inches around my waist as punishment for the glancing. So again, I try to be
good by forcing myself to select something that has been “baked” instead of “fried”.
(Translation: “tastes like cardboard” instead of “holy cow, I just had a
salt-laced orgasm”.)
But it appears
that the “baked chip” people are very busy, always coming up with new flavors
that sound very promising. So I buy everything that comes along, desperate and
hoping. But it rarely works out, and after I try one chip the bag is shoved
into the back of the pantry for all eternity. Just the other day I found a
parcel of “Uncle Granny’s Zesty Sea-Salt Tidbits of Nothing” in a dark corner
of that pantry. It had an expiration date in 1987.
7. The weird aisle
that combines cleaning products and scented candles.
You know, those “air-freshener”
candles that are supposed to detoxify your house, eliminate stanky odors,
convince you that your home has become magically located in a Tahitian
paradise, and possibly increase your libido (based on the often-startling
images of scantily-clad women succumbing to self-pleasure in a bathtub whilst
accompanied by artfully arranged flower petals).
These
candle-makers are just as busy as the chip people. There are at least three new
scents every time you walk down that aisle. So I have to experience each and
every one of them. (The fingernail on the index finger of my right hand
actually has a callous from all the scratching and sniffing.) So of course I’m
always buying more, despite the fact that we already have enough unburned
candles in this house to light a medium-sized Catholic church for the next two
hundred years.
8. The fancy deli
section.
Why pay less for
a pre-packaged container of sandwich meat when you can pay even more for
someone to physically slice the same exact meat on one of those blade-twirling
machines and then lovingly place it in a special bag for you? Both versions of
said meat have been sitting in the stockroom for the same amount of time. But I
will happily pay ten bucks for three slices of designer pastrami that have been
cut to my exact specifications, even when the rude little 12-year-old managing
the hacksaw doesn’t listen to me and screws up the dimensions.
9. The ice cream
section.
I have sinned.
And I have sinned repeatedly. My craving for ice cream is why nuns were
invented to beat people with rulers. Seriously.
10. My inability
to be a patient human being in the check-out lanes.
You want to cut
me off with your cart even though I saw the shorter line at Lane 12 before you
did? Don’t think so. You want me to tolerate your screaming child who
apparently cannot continue living unless you buy him a candy bar that will
sugar-rush him to even greater heights of insubordination? Not gonna happen. You
want to argue about getting to use a coupon that is not only expired but has
nothing to do with the anything that you are trying to purchase? I will pull
out a machete and—
Oh, who am I
kidding. I will just stand there and put up with it all and curse you under my
breath. Because if I do something stupid and get my ass arrested due to your
misunderstanding of acceptable human behavior, it’s just going to be that much
longer before I can get back to my house where I can eat the taboo cheese, not
eat the low-fat crap that I don’t want, suck down the ice cream using a shovel,
and enjoy the aroma of yet another new candle, this one bearing the enticing
name of “Shanghai Breeze and Pastrami on Rye”…
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