My hunger struck sometime in the late evening. And making my usual trip to the fridge to locate some morsel of food, never mind what, I observed that it was empty. I had assured myself of this unavoidable fact quite some time before making the journey from my computer to the kitchen, but then again, you can never be 100% sure that the fridge fairy hasn't recently visited your home, waved her magic wand, and turned that three month old container of KC Masterpiece into a delicious turkey sandwich. Sadly, she had decided not to grace me with her presence on this fine day. And since the two remaining uncooked chicken wings with freezer burn didn't look very appetizing, I decided to take a trip down to the local supermarket.
I arrive with my roommate. Enter two unemployed system administrators, stage left. Now, this was supposed to be your routine get-and-go. A simple operation consisting of my roommate grabbing enough pot pies to fill him for the evening (4) and me cashing in the $16 in change I currently had pulling my pants down to my ankles from my right cargo pocket, grabbing $15 worth of shit, and bailing out in time to be home for a little Gran Tourismo 3 before my girlfriend got there. This was, however, not to be.
As I finish my rounds, I situate myself in line with the rest of my consumer-cattle peers. There is a single checkout open with three people in line ahead of me and a cart with no owner just behind me, placed just so that I’m completely unable to tell if someone decided to use their cart as a place-holder while they ran off and grabbed another six pack of that beer in the white can that says "beer" in block lettering, or if they just said "fuck it" and bailed. My predicament is as follows: Do I simply ignore the cart sitting there, or get in line behind it, holding their spot? My desire to tell the absent owner of this cart to fuck off, should they return, is only matched by my fear that a guy nicknamed "killer" is going to come back with a set of jumbo steak knives to re-claim his spot in line. The only thing that persuades me to the former is that the cart had a bunch of raw onions and garlic in the baby carrier. Put some incense in that cart and you might as well wave a flag that says "I drive a fucking VW Jetta and drink Starbucks every morning." Plus, you just can't break with supermarket etiquette like that. If you tell someone to hold your spot while you run and grab another thing of "certs", that's one thing. But if you put your cart in line and take off to grab another $30 worth of shit because you wanted to get in before everyone else in the Denver-metro area decided to up and shop at 12:30 in the morning, you're shit outta luck.
Needless to say, I cut in line.
It's about this time that my roommate gives me a distraught backwards glance from two spots ahead in line, then swivels his noggin' back in the direction of the 40-ish asian lady currently checking out. I look to see what she might be buying on this fine evening. And What do I see? A FULL FUCKING CART!!!!!! Stacked to the fucking brim with anything and everything a clueless asian lady could buy. At 12:45 in the morning!!! Of course, the guy at the checkout stand isn't exactly busting his hump to ring this lady up. And believe you me, she's double-checking every move this guy makes. In between the rhythmic beep-beep of the scanner, she keeps prairie-dogging her head over to make sure he scanned those 50 fucking cans of Progresso properly. And we begin the dance of the impatient.
After 10 minutes of this, the cart is nowhere near empty. And we begin the half-time show - basically it was the guy at the register bagging the first half of this lady's groceries and the guy with the ultra-wide mop on aisle 5 singing something in spanish. The 50-year-old hippy in front of me with his 30-year-old girlfriend is slowly shifting from one foot to the other, crossing his arms, recrossing his arms, looking back at me (as if I’m going to ring up his box of plastic spoons so he can get back to listening to Neil Young with his "lady friend" while they're banging each other on a $4,000 couch from Ikea - of course, I’m just speculating here). The guy who's next in line after the asian chick has a distraught look on his face, as if to say, "Jesus fucking CHRIST woman! I just want to buy this goddamned milk!" And to finish off our 5-minute half-time extravaganza, the absentee shopper returns to claim his long lost shopping cart behind me. His girlfriend looks elated to see that they have not only returned to find the SAME FUCKING WOMAN at the checkout stand, but have also dropped a spot on the "losers behind the woman buying $150 worth of shit" list. Well honey, that's what you get for bailing on your spot to go grab another bag of Baked Lays.
Of course, things only go down hill from here. As I slowly wipe the crust from my eyes and stretch to recover from the 90 minute nap I took on the floor, I check to see if Yoko is anywhere near finished checking out (Side note: i call her Yoko not because of her apparent heritage, but because anyone this annoying has got to be the same bitch that broke up the Beatles). Well the guy at the checkout stand has finished scanning her items (oh, thank you Jesus), but has apparently just started on the SIX INCH THICK STACK OF COUPONS she has produced from her soccer-mom purse. Hell, I think she had more coupons than she had items. And, of course, she had to write a check for it all.
By this time, the hippy in front of me with the enormous chops has taken off (I still can't figure out why he was buying a box of plastic spoons and a padlock), my roommate looks like he's going to beat the asian lady to death with a chicken pot pie, and the next guy in line is pissed because his milk passed the fucking "sell by" date while he was waiting.
To make a long story even longer - my roommate and I finally make our purchases and leave a full 15 minutes after I had entered the line from hell. As fate would have it the lovely little lady that had caused all this suffering was parked right next to us in the lot outside. As I check my watch yet again I look up to give her the "Did you buy one of everything?" look. She simply responds with a blank stare. This is the same kind of woman that would get in her car, back over the family cat on her way to drop off the kids at school, and keep the fucker in reverse as she plowed into the mailbox. Why she didn't let the guy with the milk step ahead of her or even show some small amount of haste as she was single-handedly widening the profit margins of 63 different food companies, I don't know. Why the grocery store didn't open up another aisle so I wouldn't have had to celebrate my 22nd birthday in line, I don't know. What the lady and her hippy sugar-daddy ahead of me were planning on doing with those spoons, I cannot say.
I can only impart this wisdom: I saw a microcosm of the U.S. in that line, a cross-section of all the people living in this great land. And the only thing that scares me more than the fate of that asian lady's cat is the realization that, last election, 75% of these people voted.
Basically, this can all be summed up as follows: WHAT THE FUCK, PEOPLE?!?!?!? The fucks behind me got pissed because I took a quick jaunt out of the line to see if the little cubicle of smokes was open in order to grab a pack of Marlboro Ultra-Lights. I return some 12 seconds later to the snorts of the woman with the Jetta behind me. Oh dear god Bitch! I was trying to save you time in line so you didn't have to wait while the guy at the checkout stand with the apparent lack of rapid motor skills wouldn't have to shuffle his ass all the way down to the customer service desk to grab them! Aparently this couple could not be bothered to make a distinction between my own running to save the people behind me a little bit of time versus their pulling a fucking houdini on their organic macaroni and cheese. Moreover, trixie, you violated the first rule of place-holding in line - always tell the poor fuck directly in front or behind you to HOLD YOUR SPOT! If you do not tell them this then you do not pass go! You do not collect $200, and YOU GET TO GO TO THE END OF THE FUCKING LINE!!!!
To the guy at the register: someone needs to light a fire under your ass! Guess what poncho, when there are 12 people behind the lady buying $150 worth of shit from you, your break ain't coming any fucking sooner by slowing down. If you don't speed up next time, I will personally guarantee that the treble of the beep--------beep from the lazer scanner will be accompanied by the bass from the thumpety thump of your head pounding on that little rubber conveyor belt!
To the lady at the front of the line, buying enough food to feed her 12 illegitimate children: WAKE THE FUCK UP!!! I know who you are. You're the same woman driving her car at exactly the fucking speed limit in the left lane down I-25. You're the one that's slamming on the brakes when the light turns yellow 15 feet before you hit the intersection. Why, god, why did you see fit to make these people. Aparently, I am Job, and my test is to tolerate the fucking woman at the front of the line who decided to go on a midnight double-coupon bonanza!!!!!
And finally, to the hippy and his "lady friend": seriously dude, email me and tell the what the fuck you are planning on doing with the lock and those spoons, i've gotta know.
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