|
June 29, 1997 - Sunday Okay, so the other day I went to the grocery store. (This is already boring, isn't it? Well, get used to it. Going to the grocery store is about the most exciting thing that happens to me. I'm a housewife. What do you expect?) So I'm at the grocery store alone for once. I told my husband I needed to "get some stuff," which means that I need to go goof off for a while. He probably thinks it means that I need to purchase feminine hygiene supplies, but that's okay. What he doesn't know won't kill him. So I'm in the store, and I go to the magazine stands. And there are two guys just standing there reading magazines. Not just flipping through magazines, but standing there reading them cover-to-cover, which normally would be like, okay, whatever. But on this day it kind of annoys me, because I had hoped to look at the magazines in more depth than I get to do when I'm shopping with my kids, but I can't, because one guy is leaning all on the stand that contains Woman's Day and Butterick Patterns, and the other guy is leaning on an empty grocery cart in front of the stand that has all the crossword puzzles. And the magazines in this store are against the wall in one of the corners, right next to the pharmacy. So the aisle is full of displays of reading glasses and romance books and stuff, and people are trying to get by, so it's not like I can just stand there staring at the guys until they catch their snap and get out of my way. I have to just take my cart and move on. Okay, so I don't know how long it takes me to get my cart into one of the two cosmetics aisles, which are all blocked at the ends like freeway construction because the people running this store think that's a good way to deter teenaged girls from stealing makeup or something. But finally I get there and I notice there are a lot of weird-colored nail polishes out this season, like blue and green and yellow. And I'm standing there holding up the different shades of blue to my hand, trying to figure out which one is least likely to emphasize the fact that my skin is almost the same color as that guy Data's from Star Trek TNG. But I'm having a hard time making this decision, because I can't really concentrate, because for the first time in my life I'm wondering what the deal is with those guys who always stand in the grocery store reading magazines. What kind of loser would do something like that? Well, I mean, maybe they're not losers, but I think they're kind of weird. Don't they have lives? I guess maybe they came to shop with their wives, but their wives got mad at them for driving the carts too slow and putting junk food in the carts and complaining every time the wives opened their coupon holders. Maybe the wives sent them to the magazines racks so they'd be out of the way. I don't think that's it, though, because one of the guys had his own cart, like he was about to start buying his own groceries, but he got sidetracked by the magazines and just couldn't drag himself away. And the other guy didn't looked married at all. At least, if he was married to me, I wouldn't have let him go out of the house looking all funky like he did. So then I'm trying to hold the blue nail polish bottles against my toes without being too conspicuous, coz I've realized that I'm not brave enough to wear it on my hands. Then the cosmetics department lady sneaks up behind me and asks if she can help me with anything, so I say no and take off to check the magazine stands again. And those two guys are still there. In my mind, I say "hey losers, move it." But in real life, I do that thing where you make a big show of scooting your cart between two displays of romance novels, so as to leave room for other shoppers to go by, and then you make a big show of reaching around a guy to get a copy of Crochet World. Crochet World had some pretty exciting patterns, but it was also pretty expensive, so I had to look at the patterns really closely to make sure they were worth the price. I don't know how long I was there, but after a while I noticed those guys had left. I noticed because some older guy was trying to navigate between the romance novels and my cart, don't ask me why, and he did that thing where you go "humph!" at someone, but don't look at her, so she doesn't know if you're doing it coz her cart's in the way or coz you're just clearing your throat or what. So when that guy went "humph!" I looked up and noticed that the two other guys were long gone and the janitors were buffing the floors and there were cobwebs between me and the magazine rack. And that old guy probably thought I was a loser, but ask me if I care. |