Things never quite as simple as you expect it to. It’s like some law of nature I think, maybe Newton’s third law or something. But as certain as the sun rises and sets, my plans never fully go as I plan. Like that poet once said, “plans of men and mice always go awry.” For some reason it always just spirals out of my control; I swear, I’m like the freaking ball inside a pinball machine.
Like the other day, I just had a simple plan to go to the grocery store and picking up some fruit and oatmeal. I mean, what could be simpler, right? Just picking up some Granny Smiths and some Maple Sugar Instant Oatmeal (because who has the time anymore to make real oatmeal, which takes like ten minutes? Not me, that’s who!). So I drive up to the nearest Market Basket and park next to the cart rack.
Which, in hindsight, was a pretty bad idea. I mean, how many times do we finish loading our cars with groceries, tell everyone we with that we’re taking the cart to the rack, so then all think we’re courteous and crap, only to see if we can roll it into the narrow rack from twenty feet away like some game of cart bowling. And…like all sports, the rock occasionally doesn’t go into the hole.
But back to the Market Basket; as soon as I put the car in park and kill the ignition, two thoughts fly through my mind. One is, crap, why did I park next to the cart rack. And the second is: I could really marry that girl I see in the car in front of me. Why, you might ask, would I want to marry a girl who’s a complete stranger to me? Well, truth is, I’m a little crazy like that. I couldn’t even see her face, not even her whole body. All I could see was a sliver of her shoulder as she was putting her groceries into the passenger seat. I don’t know what it was, maybe it could’ve been that it was one of the best shoulders I’ve seen all week, or maybe it was the way the temperature was a perfect seventy degrees and full of sun, or maybe it was just because she was driving a well cared for old Volvo. But I had to sit for a few seconds, there in my car, just overwhelmed by this stranger. And then, I see her boyfriend strolling up with a case of Heineken. A tall, dark skinned guy with muscles bulging out of his cut off Hollister T-shirt. He pretty much looked like every single other guy that wears Hollister and goes to a gym, I seriously think they clone these guys. Well, immediately, Volvo or not, if that beautiful, gorgeous shoulder hung out with beer toting, Hollister wearing guys like that, I decided, perhaps we would’ve just never worked out after all. And so with a quick, apologetic mental “sorry” I got out and strode into the Market Basket to pick up my fruit and…crap, I had forgotten what else I was going to get. It always happened to me when I went shopping, too. I know what you’re thinking, too, “Well, if it always happens to you, why don’t you write a list, Einstein?” Well you can wipe that smirk off your face, because the truth of the matter is, I did write a list. Just so happens that I left it at my apartment, I thought I didn’t need it.
I decided the best thing to do would be to walk up and down some aisles until what I needed to buy came back to me. Again, bad idea. That’s the way supermarkets rope you in, they get you to walk up and down their long ass aisles, looking and marveling at all of their products until you forget what you originally came into to pick up, so you end up just picking up random crap you never even thought you’d need. I still have a family pack of tuna sitting in the back of my cupboards. When do I plan to sit down and make myself a meal of a family’s worth of tuna? Not really ever, but for half price with a membership card, it was hard to pass up.
So after two or three aisles, after deciding when I entered that I wouldn’t need a cart for this “speedy” trip, I had my arms barely wrapped around the 12 unit Charmin toilet paper, 6 roll Voila paper towels, and tightly clutching a small box of Tylenol with my spare pinky.
When, looking into the cereal aisle, it struck me. I came to pick up some oatmeal! I started to walk in but was saw that an Indian family was walking out. An extremely tall father (I’m a pretty short fella, so anyone above 5 foot eleven is pretty tall for me), followed by four or five kids, each clutching a different cereal and, what seemed it seemed like to me, talking about one hundred miles an hour to their own personal imaginary friends. So I stepped back, careful not to intrude or run over any of the tall man’s children. As I was about to step back into the aisle, I was blocked again, this time by an elderly couple wearing, I supposed, sweatshirts from their alma mater. You probably would’ve said they looked cute, matching and all with their college attire, if they weren’t so stinking old. I backed away immediately, I’m not one to mess with age, and let them go by.
But they, and this I blame on their age, didn’t budge. It wasn’t like they were holding their ground in front of the aisle or anything; they just looked like they hadn’t made up their minds about whether or not it would be a good idea to begin to move again. So I patiently stood in front of them, beginning to feel real bad for them. I mean, I would hate to be at a point in life where decisions as simple as whether or not to move out of aisle have to come after such intense deliberation. When, all of a sudden, from my left, I see this enormous wall of mass coming over on top of me, I look only in time to see the tall Indian man backing up into me. Walled in from the front and right with sweet old Adam and Eve themselves (God, why couldn’t they have moved away or something to begin with) I found myself with no place to go. Now, it all happened in slow motion for me, that’s how horrifying the whole ordeal was for me. Since I was still standing there, without a place to move and bear hugging my toilet paper, all I could do was observe as my hand and the tall guy’s butt came closer and closer to an eminent collision. I couldn’t even utter a word, it all happened so fast. Before I knew what happened, my hand was over his butt, the tall man was apologizing, his kids were still running around, each playing with their cereal box, and…this is the hardest part for me. The old couple was laughing at me. Five seconds ago they couldn’t make the simple decision of either to go backwards or go forwards, but they sure had no qualms about breaking into laughter about what happened to me. Gotta love old people, they really pick their moments.
Needless to say, I was completely abashed by this episode. I managed to pick up my oatmeal, only after tremendous laboring and careful balancing with my toilet paper and paper towels and what not. As I got ready to leave, surveying the different assortment of cranberry juices (They really have combined cranberries with just about everything. I wouldn’t be surprised to see one day an ad for “CRANCAR: a delicious combination of cranberries and NASCAR”) I noticed one of those ladies that give free samples. She was dressed in her little hair net/bonnet and cooking apron like she’d just come from popping blueberry pies into grandma’s oven. I make a quick beeline for her little stand. I was expecting some delectable treat sample, procured to me free of charge by my Market Basket. As I rounded her table, giving her a small, courteous smile, I then looked down at the goods. I was so crestfallen, my toiletpaper, papertowels,Tylenol,oatmeal combination almost came crashing to the ground. On her little table was no edible, savory, satisfying snack. Instead, on her table, neatly arranged, were coupons. And there was nothing special about these coupons. I think that’s actually what upset me so much. I looked back down the very aisle I came down from and looked at the little automatic coupon dispenser. They were exactly the same coupons. I mean, who puts up a table full of coupons that they already offer down every aisle? I was so irrationally angry about those dumb coupons, about not getting a tasty snack, about not having picked up a cart so I wouldn’t have to be lugging my dumb load around, by pretty much the whole Market freaking Basket. So, I picked a coupon: fifty cents off of Alpo dog food. (Even though I don’t own one, I felt obligated since I had smiled at the lady; I couldn’t just walk off after smiling at her).
Once I got home, I let myself fall onto my sofa and turned on the TV. I was exhausted from the “speedy” shopping trip and just wanted to veg out on anything, it could’ve been The View for all I cared. And then I remembered. I had forgotten to pick up the Granny Smith apples.
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