07.02.04
Yesterday, when I walked into the grocery store to buy cherries for $.89/lb, I immediately knew where they were located by the masses of small, old women surrounding a fruit stand.
A huge array of loose and bagged cherries was set out upon one side of one of those huge fruit displays in the produce department, and there was a crowd of tiny old women in housecoats sorting through the individual fruits with a practiced eye. They were also largely Asian, which has no relevance beyond being moderately interesting in a observational sort of way.
I stood there for a minute, and then decided the only way I was ever going to get cherries was to wade in, lean over the women shorter than myself, and snag a couple bags of fruit, which is precisely what I did.
In the process, I garnered several dirty looks from the tiny, housecoated old women around me, patiently awaiting their turns to sort through the loose fruits.
But I don't care, because I wasn't going to stand there all day and watch a horde of locusts strip the fruitstand bare, and they weren't touching the pre-bagged cherries yet, anyway.
Then I went and waited in line on the self-check lane, and watched amusedly as an old woman with an Eastern European accent, probably Polish, laden with bags of cherries, demanded that the attendant check her purchase out for her. The attendant told her that she couldn't do that because she had to help everyone there, and if the old lady wanted to get checked out by someone, she needed to get into a checkout line, and not the self-check lane.
While they were still arguing, a station opened up, and I swiped my card, put the cherries on the scale, touched the screen where it said, "look up item" typed "cher" and touched the image of cherries that appeared, touched the screen where it said "bag container," and then put the cherries in a shopping bag, fed money into the machine, got my change and receipt and started to walk away, when the old woman came up to me and grabbed my arm.
I don't like strangers grabbing me, so I pulled out of her grip and turned to face her.
"You help me buy fruit!" she told me, pointing at her pile of bags of cherries.
I shook my head and told her, "No. The fast lanes mean you check it out yourself, or you get into a regular checkout lane to have someone do it for you."
Then I walked out to my car and called Erin, asked if she liked cherries, and told her to get over to Jewel today to buy some tasty fruit while she still could.
I also went home and took a nap.
What's in your head?