I detest grocery shopping.
To be fair, I detest all
kinds of shopping, but I really hate grocery shopping, which is why I will
either shop after work when the store is only semi-busy, or I will shop with my
pal Jess so we can laugh our asses off at people who ask for “polished ham” (Polish
ham) or “laugh out loud cheese” (Land O’
Lakes, aka LOL cheese).
Today I am alone, fighting
the other shoppers, including three teenaged boys who are sort of with a young
woman but mostly wilding all over the store like idiots. I run into their antics no less than five
times in my travels. I also have to
fight the displays, which, for some unknown reason, are always set up
strategically to block entire aisles.
Lastly, the grocery clerks are restocking, and it’s not like the old
days when workers actually worked. These
clerks are four-deep stocking, chatting, joking, leaving their ladders and
pallets everywhere, and playing with their cell phones. In other words, people I want to drop-kick.
I finally finish my
shopping, which consists mostly of fruits and vegetables because I’m on a
health kick, and paper goods because one can never have too much toilet paper
(though one certainly can have too little).
I now enter what I refer to as the Aggravation Zone: the check-out lines.
First, let me admit right
up front that I should probably have a sign on my back whenever I enter a
store. This sign should read, “IF YOU
ARE STANDING BEHIND ME, YOU ARE PROBABLY IN THE WRONG LINE.” I have a knack for getting behind people who
are counting out 3,000 pennies to pay, or who have items with no prices or
tags, or whose children are blowing snot in every direction, or who haven’t
showered in weeks, or who question every single price on every single can and
every single box. I am notoriously
unlucky in store check-out line choices.
Today, though, I find a
line that’s almost done, and I put my stuff up onto the conveyor belt. The scanner works, the cashier knows how to
weigh produce, and the sacker (an older gentleman) knows how to pack bags so I
don’t have to be a weightlifter to carry them.
SCORE! The woman behind me has
several kids, but they don’t crowd me, cough on me, nor puke on my shoes. SCORE AGAIN!
In no time, my carriage is loaded up with bags, and I’m sailing out of
the store.
This could be the day I
get home in a reasonable amount of time.
Until … until the other shopper
cuts in front of me just as I am nearing the door.
I don’t give this maneuver
much thought. I mean, seriously, the guy
pushing the carriage is about my age. He
seems to be as intent on leaving this damn place as am I. He probably hates shopping as much as I
do. I’m booking it along behind him, and
we make it through the first door without a hitch. Then … then …
Suddenly … he stops. Just as we reach the second door, just as I
am about to break loose and hit the open sidewalk, just as I am home-free, he
freaking stops to throw something in the trash can, blocking me in the limbo
that is the inner sanctum between automatic doors. He doesn’t bother with the trashcan that’s
right outside the final door nor the trashcan that is inside the store by the
first door. No, he desperately wants to
throw his paper list into this particular trashcan because, hey, why not – who the
frig cares if there are people behind him!
And this, folks, this is
where the guy nearly gets a free proctol exam, courtesy of my shopping
carriage. I have so much momentum and so
many groceries that a quick stop is nearly impossible. The front of the metal vehicle I am
commandeering screeches to a halt mere inches from the asshole’s asshole.
I should have known. I should have seen this coming. After all, I have zero trauma at the check-out. I cannot possibly be so naïve as to believe
that my shopping luck has changed. Karma
is not my friend, and I need to accept this and embrace the irony that is my
life.
So, I am going to make a
new sign for the next time I go shopping:
“IF YOU ARE IN FRONT OF ME AND DECIDE TO STOP YOUR CART, I AM GOING TO
GIVE YOU A SEVERE CASE OF CARRIAGE-ASS.”
So there! Stick that next to your polished ham and your
laugh-out-loud cheese.
