Aggravation in the grocery store

I went to the grocery store after work tonight for two reasons. One, I had no food, and two, it was payday so I could afford some new food. In fact, my kitchen was so empty that it was beginning to look like a third world nation around here (minus the flies).

So I spent about 30 minutes perusing the aisles, carefully selecting my boxes of macaroni and cheese, bananas, and various sandwich meats. But the bulk of my time was spent searching for the Holy Grail that is Pralines and Cream ice cream. I swear to Sweet Baby Jesus and Andrew W.K., almost NO ONE makes it anymore, only Mayfield, and that's fine, as long as I can get it when the mood strikes. Now, there was no shortage of liberal, hippie, gourmet ice cream made by guys who look like the long lost brothers of Jerry Garcia and live in weird, foreign places like Vermont and probably listen to too much Phish. But what I'm talking about here is good, summertime-eatin' ice cream. This is not the kind of ice cream one puts chunks of Godiva chocolate in (while I will allow that there is certainly a time and place for that) or tops with wheat germ or what have you. I was THIS close to just buying the Blue Belle vanilla and making pralines to crumble over the top if it (not a bad idea..note to self...make pralines and crumble over Blue Belle vanilla...). But I found it and all was right with the world.

Almost.


I had to check out. Now, the Murder Kroger on a weeknight is iffy at best, so you can only imagine what it's like on a Friday night at 11.30. But I was overjoyed when I found a short line that had both a checkout operator AND a bagger. " WHOO HOOO! I won't have to bag my own groceries" I thought to myself. Boy, was I wrong..sort of..The girl who was "bagging" my groceries (and I use this term loosely) was getting off work at 12.30, had only recently broken up with her boyfriend, had broken up with said boyfriend because it turned out that he was the baby-daddy of her cousin, earlier had a ride home from work but didn't anymore because he was up in the club and didn't want to leave just when it was getting good to come pick her up, and still wasn't sure how she was getting home. I know all of this, because she was telling the cashier all of this as she was sort of throwing my milk, eggs, Crisco, Bisquick, and cheese into random bags, letting some items fall to the side. All of this was getting accomplished at glacial speed. The best part was when the cashier had moved onto the customer behind me and was sending her items down the little conveyor belt and Ms. Recently Dumped started bagging her groceries in my bags. As I was trying to sort out the mess and not show my ass, she picked up one of my yogurt cups and said "Where did this come from?" I said "it's mine". She then uttered the statement that will probably cause my aneurysm later tonight..."What is it?"....

All of this made me remember about when I was eighteen and worked at Woodham's IGA in Eufaula, Alabama. Of all the grocery stores in Eufaula, Woodham's was the bottom of the barrel. It wasn't the brand new Food Fair, nor was it the uber-middle class Winn Dixie or Piggly Wiggly. It was on the west side of Highway 431, across the road from one of the many housing projects that populated post New Deal rural Alabama. Believe it or not, people could actually smoke in public places at the time, the IGA being no exception. So it was not uncommon to see a woman pushing a grocery cart, one barefoot kid running along side poking things with the stick he'd brought in, a baby in the seat, and she'd be smoking a cigarette while leaning over the fresh produce. I'm pretty sure that this was about the time I coined the term "grocery store feet", but I digress...

But my career at the IGA wasn't all bad. It did have it's benefits. Like a regular paycheck. So my mom wouldn't kick me out again. And they sold beer. And I had a 19 year old boyfriend, who like most boys from Eufaula, Alabama, enjoyed drinking Budweiser. So he would come into the IGA, select his beer, and check out in my line. Easy enough, we always had beer for that night when I got off work.

Was I as bad at eighteen as Ms. Recently Been Dumped? I don't know. I'd like to think not, but the reality is, is that I probably was. Perhaps worse. I seem to remember many conversations with Kate, one of the other cashiers, about who would be down at Old Creek Towne and should we go...And I'm sure some thirty-ish woman looked at me with disdain and just wish that I'd bag her groceries...

Did I mention that I heard Whitney Houston's "I believe the children are the future" on the Muzak at Murder Kroger just before I got in line to check out? God, I hope Whitney's wrong.