After work I stopped in at the ‘Gay – that’s my special name for the cheerful, cherry red shopping mecca known as Super Target. At the checkout stand, as usual, the poor little price check girl was completely flustered as she failed to correctly ID my bokchoy, turnips and watercress.
Today I watched, unabashed in my amusement, as this cashier, eyes wide with panic, began a mad, twitchy flipfest through her laminated vegetable code book. In her mind, ran thoughts like: What the f*&% is a spaghetti squash? Who the F*&% buys organic parsnips? Why in holy hell is this health nut, miscreant customer ogling me and laughing like some ten-year-old-boy whose just snorted pixie sticks? F*&%, Sh*t and Santa Maria!
Yes indeed, when I buy vegetables, the cashier is my bitch. A master of all things organic, I am the pimp of produce.
Yeah, today I enjoyed the requisite failure to recognize the garden fresh items in my cart. But sometimes this blatant ignorance by supermarket employees – who often can’t tell asparagus from their ass – really cheeses me off. I mean, I’ve had checkers ask me what freaking green beans are!
In instances like these, where it’s obvious that I’m dealing with someone who has ganglia for brains, I find it very difficult to restrain myself, to squelch my overpowering, animalistic desire to reach across that conveyor belt, grab “Darlene” by her shiny, shellacked hairdo, and at the top of my lungs scream, “YOU! OUTTA THE GENE POOL!”
But I digress.
Despite the checkers’ vegetable-induced theatrics, or rather because of it, I had a very delightful shopping trip this eve. The grand finale at this event: as Darlene was bagging my goods, I heard a loud crash behind me and some gurgling noises. I turned around just in time to see a Mr. Mom do an amazing, though not successful, juggling act wherein New Bouncing Babe was on one bicep, a bag of nappies was on the other.
Just like it was scripted, just like a bad supermarket sitcom, I watched as the pampers, an open container of Johnson’s baby powder, a tube of ointment, and tub of wipes went ass-over-teakettle, falling from the stroller to the floor in a glorious, discordant cacophony. Like fine morning mist over the moors of Ireland, talcum powder rose in a cloud around me as I made my exit from that wonderful place that I call, the ‘Gay.
