Scenes from a grocery store

Remember that scene from Gone With The Wind?

Bodies as far as the eye can see?

I went grocery shopping last night.
It was my time to do the "big shopping" and it happened to coincide with shopping for thanksgiving.

Now, there are times of the year when you can just tell that you are surrounded by people that don't normally go to the grocery store. They are the people with the testicles. They are sometimes accompanied by people with whom they are apparantly married. Those women are usually talking to them v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. It is as if their husbands have beamed down from Mars or perhaps a small jungle island that has never seen a phone or car and now they are tasked with finding sweetened condensed milk while their wives shop for 250 other things. They look at their wife as if she has just grown a third head..."Sweetened condensed milk? Why not just buy whole milk????" Because, as we all know, the non-shopping, non-cooking husband has all the smart, intelligent suggestions that will lead you down the road to ruin. The wife immediately knows that bringing the husband along has just added an hour onto her errand and he will eventually meet her at the register with a can of evaporated milk.

The other "male in the wild" at the grocery store last night was the one without a guide, but with a cell phone. Conversations were had AT A VERY LOUD LEVEL AND WITH MUCH EXASPERATION AND OH MY GOD DOES IT REALLY MATTER IF THE WALNUTS ARE ALREADY CRUSHED??? I HAVE A SLEDGE HAMMER IN THE GARAGE AND I'LL CRUSH THE DAMN THINGS MYSELF.

As I waded through the bodies, I had to remind myself that just because I was trying to avoid gluten in things that I will eat, I do not have to force my annoying eating habit onto all members of my family. One things that I would recommend to anyone who is going through a gluten issue is to come to terms with all the things that you can't eat before you go to the grocery store. If you don't, you'll end up reading all the labels and you'll get progressively more profane as your shopping trip continues. I started out just muttering under my breath and ended up swearing loudly and most inappropriately by the end. I even turned the heads of three guys on cell phones right before I checked out.

And of course there were kids from a local high school athletic team to "help" me bag my groceries. Of course, they are looking to raise money for some such thing as fur lined jock straps or something... They picked the wrong person. The irony is that their school is in my neighborhood and if I were a "good citizen" I would have let them bag my groceries and then handed them a five for their efforts. Unfortunately for them, I am not a fan of my neighborhood schools. I think they are overwhelmingly spoiled rotten rich kids who are so white and so self centered that they believe the soft glowing force of the universe shines directly out of their own assholes.

To illustrate my point: When my friend's daughter played in a soccer game against my neighborhood school, my neighborhood school unfurled a banner that said "Your dad works for my dad". Why not "Your mom works for my mom"???? Because their moms are too busy putting together fundraisers for the school athletic team to have a 'real job'. And besides, it might screw up their manicure...

So when these precious boys approached me and asked if they could help bag my groceries (all $300 worth), I think I sort of threw myself on top of my cart and started to snarl as my head turned all the way around.

"MY GROCERIES!!!!!! MINE!!!!!!!!!"

Yeah, I'm all about supporting the children.