vituperation

May 23, 2004

Every Saturday morning, I go get groceries first thing. Generally, I’m among the first few customers and occasionally I’m even the first one. Shopping so early is great, because there are no crowds, no human obstacles to avoid, and no shrieking kids. (Except on the Saturday morning before Easter, when it’s nothing BUT shrieking kids. But hell, who can complain about one day a year, right?)

From time to time mildly embarrassing things happen in the grocery store, from baggers with boogers ready to attack, to me dancing gracelessly through the meat department carrying a beef jerky display like a purse.

Yesterday was one of those times.

The morning started out nicely, until I cut the major artery running through my chin (didn’t know you had one there, did you?) while shaving in the shower roughly eight minutes after I got out of bed. Those first eight minutes were great, though. Oh, except for the fact that my eyes were as red as Ted Kennedy’s nose. I looked stoned out of my gourd.

Direct pressure wouldn’t stop the bleeding on my chin, nor would my styptic pencil. In a final act of desperation, I put a big Bandaid on my chin, which did the trick. With my bandaged face and red-rimmed eyes, I imagined I looked like a wino after a week-long bender as I made my way to the grocery store and quickly through it, having a very short list this week.

After ten or more weeks of having Grim Bobbie (named so by my wife because she never seems to smile. Except she smiles and is friendly to me. Then again, I’m approachable.), the middle-aged married checker, I found when I got to the checkout yesterday that Shelley, the super cute 20-ish single checker was back. And me with a big Bandaid on my chin and bleary red scleras.

(Note to my female readers: your husbands won’t admit it, but we guys DO care what we look like, and even though we’re not trying (or even interested) to pick up the cute checkers, we do notice when they’re working. A certain vanity comes with getting older, where you want the younger women to notice you’re alive, even though you’re not trying to get into their pants.)

Everyone who works at Publix on Saturday mornings knows me, and most of them know me by name. (See "approachable" in your dictionary) As I walked up to the checkout line I saw two other employees in line buying breakfast for themselves. I pushed my cart into place and stood quietly, willing my face to look unmarked by a Bandaid and my eyes to look clear. Both employees in line, as well as Shelley, turned as one to say hello to me.

"Morning!" I said brightly, in an attempt to draw attention from my chin.

Employee #2 brightened, and smiled broadly at me. "I still haven’t gotten up enough nerve to take that thing out," she said.

I had no idea what she was talking about, so I smiled bigger.

"Oh yeah?" I asked. I started unloading my cart.

"Yeah," she said, then paused contemplatively. "I just can’t get up enough nerve to do it."

I smiled and nodded, and debated pointing out that I had a Bandaid on my chin in an effort to get into a conversation where I had a clue.

"I don’t blame you," I said. Let it be known that I will do my best to wing it when in an unknown situation.

"How did you say you got yours out?" she asked.

Busted. Cold busted. I stood there for a moment, feeling like a deer in oncoming headlights, the grin frozen on my face as my mind raced to come with a suitable answer to her question. Time stretched out into an eternity. I wondered if I could fake a seizure, or perhaps a heart attack. Pitching forward into the candy rack with a loud moan would certainly change the subject, right?

A bead of sweat rolled out of my hairline and down the side of my face.

Finally, I gave up.

"Wait a second," I said, stretching my grin even more. I suspect at this point it was more like a rictus. "I think maybe we’re talking about two different things." Winging it, remember? "How did I take what out?"

"The thing," she said patiently. I wondered if she might be channeling the spud. "In the back of your car."

She turned to the other employee. "He and I have the same kind of car," she said, "and I went over to look at his a few weeks ago when he got it. There’s this thing in the back…to hide stuff…"

Ah.

"The luggage cover," I said helpfully.

"Yeah! And he took his out. I mean, nobody ever uses those anyway, right?"

"You just have to grab it and pull really hard," I said. "But watch your hands, because I banged the fool out of mine on the window when I did it."

We talked a bit more as they finished buying breakfast and I unloaded my cart. No one mentioned my Bandaid. The two employees left, presumably to have breakfast, and I was left alone with Shelley. Normally, when she’s working, she asks all sorts of questions, like did you run today? and what are you doing this weekend? Not this time. I suspect the eyes and the Bandaid, but I have no proof.

There was no bagger working, so I bagged my own groceries. Each time I filled a bag and tried to pull it off the wire rack, I pulled ten or twenty other bags with it. And dropped them. And fumbled around with them, trying to pick them up and get them back on the rack. Seriously, it got so bad at one point I started looking around for Allen Funt or Ashton Kutcher. Finally the manager, probably feeling sorry for me for not only having red eyes and a Bandaid on my chin, but also some rare condition that made me unable to perform simple tasks, came over and took charge of bagging my groceries.

"You sure did get a lot of frozen fruit," Shelley said. "Are you going to make smoothies?"

"No," I replied. "They were on sale. I put them in my oatmeal."

I considered the words I had just uttered.

"Every day I have to say one thing that makes me sound old," I quipped with a smile. "I think that was today’s."

She looked blankly at me for a moment, then returned to scanning items. The manager looked at me like I might be addled.

Damn, I hate it when a joke falls flat.

I finished loading my bags onto the cart, putting the six 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke (two per bag) on the rack at the bottom of the cart. I paid, got my change, said goodbye to Shelley and the manager, and wheeled my cart out of the store, thanking God that grocery shopping was over and I could go home and sit in the dark, willing my face to heal.

Just outside the front door, I noticed cars coming from both directions and stopped the cart suddenly, causing its contents to shift slightly. Both cars rolled to a stop and motioned for me to cross. I nodded my thanks to both vehicles and shoved the cart to get it moving, causing everything in it to shift once again.

Halfway across the lane, I heard two peculiar sounds — foomp! foomp! — and had an instant to wonder (what was that?) about them before the back wheels of my cart struck the two bottles of Diet Coke that had fallen out, sending them skittering out from under the cart. One went left, one went right.

Sometimes I feel like Curly, in search of a Moe and Larry.

I gave chase, first to the left one, then to the right one, in full view of the occupants of both cars. My cart, meanwhile, continued in a straight line of its own accord, pulled down the gentle slope of the parking lot by gravity. So I had to chase after it, clutching bottles of foaming Diet Coke to my chest. Fortunately, I caught it before it was able to do any damage.

I didn’t look at the cars to see if they were laughing. I didn’t have to.

I made my way to my car and found another cart, empty, resting against it. After unloading my groceries, I pulled the second cart away and checked for dings or scratches. There were none, so I jammed the second cart onto the front end of the first, making a sort of train, and headed back to the store to drop them off. Normally, you see, one of the Publix services is to take your stuff to your car for you, so there’s nowhere in the lot to leave a cart because the bagger takes the cart back in when he (or she) is done with the unloading.

I wheeled the carts through the front door into the vestibule where the carts are kept, swinging them wide because I had to make a sharp turn to put them into the rows of empty carts stored in the small area. With a grunt, I heaved the carts to the left to turn them.

And the one in the front slingshotted off at a pretty good clip. It caused the second door — the one leading into the main part of the store — to slide open with a hiss, and rocketed through it into the store, where it merrily crashed into a display of sale items.

Being the sort of person who takes responsibility for his foibles, I quickly shoved my cart into the row of empties — leaving the second cart behind — and ran for my car before I could do any more damage to my ego.