Food Shopping-One Man's experience

I needed to go to the store for some food and I told Linda I thought that I could do it myself. Pretty brave isn't it. Well, I should be able to do that alone. So I needed to pick up one of these little non-electric rug sweepers so I thought I'll go to Wal-Mart and get the vac and food at the same time-sort of multi-tasking. Multi-tasking for a man is really like a Reader's Digest in one hand heading for the bathroom. Anyway, I said, hello to everyone I met because they could be my buddy someday. Linda hates it when I call everybody, "buddy." So I get a cart and the worker guy is looking at me so I say, "Can I use this one?" pointing to the first in a row of 200. He looks at me like, "What a dumb as........" I guess that's a. Yes and headed off into the store. My eyes grew wide and my lips started to get dry as well as my throat. I have never seen so much stuff to buy. I'm sure glad I didn't make a list. If I had a list it would take all day trying to find everything. This way I could just walk up and down the ailes (sp) and buy whatever looked good. I started at the Pharma-that's what Grandma calls it, and saw that the line was so long trying to buy Claritin-D that I'll just use some of Grandma's instead. So I stumble onto the vaccum cleaners and can't find any that are non-electric. So I'm looking at a steam cleaner that costs $465 and I'm thinking, "I'll hire a little Jap guy." Just as I am about to move on I see what I need on the top shelf that says, "Ask for assistance." I say, "screw that, I'll just climb up here using the ladder in the hardware section. No problem but the old guy in paint was having a heart attack because I didn't as for "assistance." I just said I was checking out the ladder and It didn't seem to be what I was looking for as the steps were too far apart. I realized the error of my ways when I noticed I was climbing up the wrong side. In anycase I got the sweeper and was off the get some groceries.

Women, drive their shopping carts just like they drive their cars. Without any warning whatsoever they stop or worse they turn without signaling and then stop right the hell in front of you. I think shopping carts should have horns on them. One lady kept doing that and I kept going from side to side and I thought if this cart had real horns I'd goose her a couple of times with them to get her going.

ONe thing I noticed is whenever I found something to put in my cart I would pick it up and then look around to see if anyone was watching or if anyone would come up and say, "Why are you buying that?" I would quickly place it in the cart and move on in case someone did come up and grab it from me. This happened especially in the meat and cheese department. All I kept saying to people as they passed, "buddy, would this make a good sandwich?' They would look at me and just stare and move on.

When I was getting the Macaroni and Cheese-the item you must buy when you go to the store no matter what and no matter if you have a thousand cases in the basement. This guy is getting mad at his wife-it must be his wife because if it was his girlfriend she would have just decked him and walked out. He was winning about how many boxes of Mand C they need. I thought, hell buddy you'll need a lot to fill up that big mouth of yours.

I said, "excuse me" in a real high voice as I was a little scared of this guy that maybe he might start looking at what I bought and want to stomp my face or something. I thought if he asks me a question I'm going to say what Tiff said in one of her comments, "my nose is starting to run and I need to sit down."

After I got all my stuff I went to check out and no matter which line I chose the people would have a problem with the check or something. I thing that is a ploy to make us use plastic credit cards.

While checking out the lady said, "first time?" I said, "excuse me?" She said, "from what you bought here it looks like this is the first time you have ever been to a store. " I said, "No, I work for the FBi and I'm tracking someone. I'll have to bring it all back in the morning as it will be the wrong stuff. I was setting it up for when Linda sees what I bought.

I had a funny feeling about going. I should have laid down on the couch until the feeling passed.