Seven Deadly...Coupons?

Some dread going to the dentist. Others the doctor, or the mall. Maybe you're not too keen on the DMV, perhaps the mechanic, maybe the cemetery, or possibly church, if you're feeling dreadfully honest. Within all of these destinations, our failures, fears, and insecurities are illuminated as we stumble around, cringing in terror, stricken with grief, or exasperated in unquenchable frustration.

They've got nothing on the grocery store.

It always seems to rain on my way to the grocery store. It isn't as though my journey is so abnormally long that I have to drive several country miles and the hydrologic cycle has time to kick in and bring down ice knives of rain droplets down on my face. Maybe, in a sad cosmic way, the interlocking of the key of my car into the ignition signals a downpour from the heavens. I suppose it's coincidental, and I could care less about what you think about coincidences, if they exist, if they don't, what-have-you. It's the grocery store and the rain makes ominous and filled with hate and saturated plastic bags that cling to the oil-speckled asphalt, defiantly refusing to decompose.

As I search the browbeaten parking lot for a spot, other cars fight each other like carnivorous animals on the African plains over a malnourished conquest that is the closest spot to the front door. I wonder if there is a correlation between cars parked closest to the front door and most unhealthy food purchased at the grocery store, because I always see the skinny people walking from the back of the lot. Anyway, I also tend to avoid choosing spots near the cart return, since the lovely clientèle always seem to enjoy rocketing the carts as fast as possible into the others, caring not if the errant projectile even makes it close to the rusted metal confines with the other herded metal sheep. The carts careen off one another, causes scratches, dents, scrapes, and all out-destruction on nearby car bodies. It's really a wonder that the adjacent parking spots near the cart return haven't formed some bastardized auto paint palette on the asphalt, an orphaned version of the popular application on manufacturer websites where one can design one's own vehicle for purchase. Somewhere in the chaos, I park my car and take the shuttle to the front door, since it's really more practical than the hour walk I have ahead of me.

Once inside the arctic walls of the grocer, I am forced to select a model of grocery cart, since I have no manservant to carry my goods. This leaves me in a paralyzing moment of mental stasis, as I am left to decide between the aircraft carrier cart, constructed for families of twelve or more; the modified double-decker wheeled hand truck, used almost exclusively by sexually ambiguous middle-aged men with salt-and-pepper hair and earrings; and finally, the I'm-only-buying-two-things hand basket, which has the sturdiness of a booze-laced promised made shortly after last call.

I always choose the aircraft carrier because it's always the only model available, and so it goes. My trip surreptitiously begins; and the wonders and horrors of the outdoors are soon forgotten, as those within the fluorescent-lit aisles trump them and eventually slay them, one by one by one.

It begins with a bang in the produce section. Well, it might begin with a bang, but my whimper abbreviates it quickly. The produce section is the biggest can-you-top-this section of the grocery store, where patrons attempt to be healthier than thou. I never thought dudes would try to out-dude one another by the volume of vegetables they violently sling into their carts, but the world is an unpredictable place. Men don virtual suits of armor, ready to battle one another to the last link of chain mail to determine who is mightiest in the produce joust. I'm only trying to grab some grapes and perhaps some baby carrots, but apparently that's bush league around these parts. Blood is shed as I have difficulty opening the provided plastic bags and end up ripping off a couple hundred before I can hurriedly toss some apples inside. This isn't the worst part though, as I feel the steely looks of those around me, judging my simpleton tastes and unwillingness to be more experimental in my perishable shopping.

The produce section is where judgment inside the grocery store begins. Patrons evaluate one another based on what's in the shopping cart, and since the produce section takes a considerable period of time , it enables those twist-tying eggplant to give those of us looks for oranges the once-over, and immediately we are deemed non-threats and also inferior shoppers, given the lack of exotic goods within our vessels. It's like committing a capital offense in your dreams and being exiled to death row in real life. I haven't budged yet though...I endure the dagger-like eyes of the patriarchal persons in produce and snatch up my plebeian perishables, rocketing past the bakery, since by the time I make it that far, all baked goods have since endured the evening fire sale, as they sit in washed-out plastic cases, stained from human contact, collecting dust as relative antiquities.

Around the next couple aisles are an arsenal of pots, pans, and other kitchen utensils rarely visited by the store's shoppers. They seem to be barely hanging on to the series of racks that dot the aisles, in sort of childlike stance of readiness, as if they had been swinging as high as possible and were just ready to fling themselves off the swingset to get a rush of sand into their eyes. They are ignored. They stand idle and forlorn, waiting to find the warmth of a home. Envious of the nearby wine racks so lovingly caressed by the scores of people flowing in and out with the ebb and flow of time, they demand attention without saying a word. Attention they will not receive but so often.

Things become less salient after the utensils; the aisles dissolve into one another, lacking definition and identity. Shoppers also seem to have lost the vitriol they so violently possessed upon their initial passage through those sliding doors. Was that Gwyneth Paltrow that just streaked by!?!!!? Anyway, the life seems to be sapped out of everyone by the amorphous rows of foodstuffs. Canned corn here. Hamburger Helper there. Nothing sticks out, calls one to buy it, bellows for the inclusion into the cold shopping basket with the itinerant cans of soup or the corpulent brownie mix. People shuffle in and out of the aisles like zombified shells of themselves, cadaverous entities channeling the ghost of Ponce de Leon, continuing a never ending search for a soul-replenishing substance that will never end, not even with coupons clipped from the Sunday paper. This is where the endless sea of pabulum becomes crippling. Once spry, lively individuals become statuesque in front of sections of the store, debating over cereal or spice or tortilla choices for hours; the "hot girl" you saw by the bakery is now a hideous gargoyle betwixt Progresso and Campbell's soups.

Swimming through all of the madness, I understand that I am a survivor of the most treacherous and bone-chilling parts of the store, at least for now, and have been blessed with some miraculous ability to swim against the halted chronal flow that the others have so willingly succumbed to; I am the only one granted this sacred boon. I alone must make it to...the frozen foods.

Ironically, the chilly precipice of the frozen food section reawakens the shuffling undead populace into a bloodthirsty state, characterized most notably by wrath and utter contempt for both humanity and the ever-shrinking ozone layer. They stand sentry at the cryogenic sarcophagi, debating which stack of technologically-enhanced vittles to rifle though before snarling rabidly at any foolish passers-by who interrupt their fabricated and impolite state of serenity. By now I feel like Tenzig Norgay, having scaled the face of Everest in my own right but lacking all the publicity for my efforts. Surrounded by ravenous frozen food vampires, I meagerly await my turn before picking through the leftover carrion. My attempts are expedited by the gnashing of teeth from approaching shoppers, eager to sink their fangs into Lean Cuisine Swedish Meatballs.

All of the ghosts and ghouls have dissipated by the hour I reach the dairy section; in fact, all signs of life have disappeared as if the rapture had taken place, without even giving me a heads-up text message. There are those shattered individuals huddled around the milk in a Sisyphean effort to discover the gallon of milk that will not go bad for seven months. There are those caught in the eternal struggle to obtain the store's five packages of cheese slices for ten dollars, but we all know such a deal is hopeless, as those who try go mad from doing so, their maniacal laughter echoing throughout the hollow expanse of the store. Other than that, nothing remains. Smatterings of cosmetics and toiletries crowd the remaining space, like piles of bones inside the dungeon at the bottom of an unoccupied castle.

I would go into further detail regarding the animatronic actions of the cashier and bag...people...folks...lackeys maybe? However, their hollow eyes and listless robotic motions do not merit further consideration; they alone acknowledge the pain and suffering of my horrific and depressing experience, since they have witnessed the same countless journey of others before, a seemingly unending flow of customers in and out, those welcoming doors sliding in and out. It is as if they are crying out for help with each swipe of a can or box, wishing they could rescue a particularly tortured soul here and there, but realize they are doomed to do nothing else but watch the carnage day in and day out. The only reprieve they earn is the sight of one customer going quietly into the night, having survived the powerfully visceral experience and lived to tell the tale on Blogger.

"Thank you for shopping at Kroger."