I went to Kroger tonight thinking, “Nobody will be at Kroger on a Saturday night”. So after my mile walk from the car to the front door of Kroger, I went in to buy my preplanned one item (I guess you know where this is headed). I only needed some powdered…I don’t guess I really need to tell you my shopping list but anyway, long ramble short, I had my hands full at the “Express Self Check-out”. You really don’t know how embarrassing your goofy ringtone is until it you are in this situation with a long line around you (because no one stands single file any more) and your phone is blaring at level ten the tone you have deemed to best represent yourself. I couldn’t reach my phone as I was trying to juggle my impromptu shopping list finds and I just had to ride it out while my man-card in my other pocket, melted like cotton candy in a rain storm.
During my slowly forward moving juggling act, I only dropped one yogurt (“Clean up on express isle”) and couldn’t make up my mind what to do as I didn’t have a roll of paper towels included in my act. Since everyone around me saw it happen, I knew that I didn’t have to worry that someone might accidentally step in it, so I did what any American would do and waited to catch an employee’s eye to let them know that “someone” had made a mess. The employee, while listening, looked up at the top of my head twice. This reminded me that my head was itching. It also reminded me that I had been scratching my head and playing with my hair in the car on the ride over. For me this is never a good thing. Once my gel/varnish has been cracked, all kinds of mayhem can happen on top of my head. It can make me go from looking fairly normal to looking like a crazy, white Buckwheat. My hands were full… I had made a mess…my phone had jamboxed…and I had crazy-white-Buckwheat hair phobia. All I wanted to do was to put my juggling act in a cart somewhere, run to the bathroom to check my hair, and then come back and return to my place in line. I knew that was all about to not happen.
When I, my juggling act, and my hair finally got up to the “Express Self Check Out”, I leaned over and let everything slowly tumble from my arms down to the holding area. It was kind of like dropping things in slowmo. I reached up and felt my hair…it was everywhere and big. I did a quick finger comb over and started the scanning. Anyway, I used my best flying fingers of furry action to quickly punch in my alternate ID, so that I would get the points, and then tried to scan my fridge-fillers as fast as I could. I hate it when there is a line behind me at these places. I can feel the pressure and mob scene angst festering.
I finished in record time ( I hope people noted that) and put my hand in my pocket to get my money. Normally….well always, I use my check-card. But noooooo, not tonight! I had forgotten that earlier in the day I had gone through my different pants pockets and gathered up my one dollar bills. I think I had about forty! So, before I had left for Kroger, I decided I would grab my “pimp roll” and start making it rain inside of Kroger instead of just outside. Into that self check-out machine, I fed twenty seven dollars, one bill at a time. I felt like Forrest Gump!!! I could feel the angry mob behind me rolling their eyes and could hear the thump, thump, thump of their hearts getting faster and faster. I kept putting the dollar bills in backwards or upside down and I think every single one of them had a bent corner that caused the bill to be spit back out, ironed and then re-entered. Suddenly, I was my own worst nightmare… I was the slow driver in the fast lane…I was the guy at Subway that can’t make up his mind which toppings he wants…I was the customer at Baskin-Robbins talking on their cell phone instead of listening for their number that has already been called out ten times…I was the waitress that thought a chicken burger was made from beefchicken. Yes, I was all of the above and I had a brief out of body experience, rolled my eyes at myself, and then hopped back in, picked up my bags/change/receipt and left the building for my mile long walk of shame back to my car. Surely, surely there is a lesson in this to teach me patience or to write out a shopping list and stick to it or something. The only thing I can think of right off hand is to never get behind a stripper at an “Express Self Check Out” line. That’s a pretty good lesson to learn though, right?
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