This is my ride. When I'm shopping, I'm winning
She does, I’m not lying. You see, I shop for the groceries around here. Mainly because I have more flexibility in my day than my wife does, but also mainly because she never buys the stuff I want. So I do the shopping. But I’m shopping for 5 people each time I go. Have you ever shopped for 5 or more people? It’s an event, not unlike the old Supermarket Sweep gameshow. I run, well who am I trying to fool? I walk purposefully through the store, in a pre-determined route that I’ve honed to perfection over the years.
Everyone else goes in the store and just kind of wanders about, taking in the majestic beauty that is the local mega market. I don’t know where these people have been living the past, oh 50 years, but they are completely stunned and awestruck by the bountiful harvest set before them by the grocery conglomerates. Me, I’m not impressed. It’s the same crap in mostly the same location every week. Once in a while they’ll stick a display of Twinkies or tampons out in the middle of the aisle, but otherwise it’s not really a lot to behold.
So while I’m driving my highly tuned, tricked out grocery cart through the store, I’m deftly weaving in and out of housewife traffic. Two heifers blocking the entire aisle? No problem, I can skid to a stop and simultaneously pull a 180 degree turn with pinpoint precision. Items go flying from the store shelves into my cart, neatly arranged by where it goes when I get home. This is how I load the belt at the checkout and this is how I want it to be bagged up for me. No sense in running around in circles to put this stuff away, all it takes is a superior mind to figure out the best course of action and implement it. I have one such superior mind.
Now, another thing I like to do is wait until AFTER they finish ringing up my order to give them the store discount card. It makes me happy to see the money come spilling off my receipt after everything has been scanned, bagged and stacked neatly back in my cart. It’s like my own little Showcase Showdown. Or maybe that little yodeling mountain climber game from the Price is Right. Either way, it makes me happy.
What it doesn’t do, is make the cashier happy. She’s usually an old bat, angry at the world because she has to ring up my groceries. She probably applied for the “florist” position and found out that Francois the ambiguously gay floral designer beat her to the spot. So here she is, on register 9 having to check out my mountainous, albeit very organized, cart full of grocery store wares.
And I buy heavy shit. 40lb bags of dog food, cases of beer, cinder block crunch cereal. You know, MAN stuff. It’s heavy, that means it’s manly. And she weighs in around 87lbs soaking wet. I offer to help her scan the heavier things and she seethes at me “No, I got it!” Meee-yow! You go on with your bad, geriatric, breakin’-a-hip self then! But before she’ll start scanning she wants my bonus card. That’s a no-no. I tell her, I’ll give it to her when I get done unloading the cart.
She’d rather have it now. I’d rather give it to her when I’m damn good and ready. The manager gets involved, and by now, he’s used to it. ”Sir, we require all of our cashiers to ask for your bonus card prior to ringing up your order to insure you get the discounts that are available to you.” And I say, “Yeah, but go eat a turd. I’ll do it my way.” He sighs, wanders by the beer aisle and swipes a 6 pack along with Nytol sleeping pills. I know he hates his job. I can relate. I hate his job too.
So now, finally the old bat realizes she’s not getting the card until I’m damn good and ready to hand it over. With disgust in her eye and pure black hate in her heart, she begins the process of ringing up my order. She doesn’t realize that I don’t have a single thing else to do, but she goes as slow as humanly possible to irritate me. If I was a busy guy, I wouldn’t be grocery shopping at 10am on a Thursday, do you think? There are times that I’ll have her stop, print the receipt and go back and verify for me if the canned tomatoes were 87 cents or 86 cents, just because I can. Take that you old bitty.
Finally she gets through, I hand over the card, and if there was a way to verify it, I’d swear she scans my card with a voodoo curse chaser. I mean, just that pure, raw, loathing she has for me has to be a bad luck incantation doesn’t it?
On the upside? I saved $68.87 today.
