April 12, 2000

Grocery Stores and Weirdos

by Joshua Carden

Okay, talk about your weird happenings.  Grocery stores.  Weird stuff happens at grocery stores.  For instance, last week at the grocery chain called Food [Second word omitted to avoid libel charges.  I’m not lion, they could sue me], a fight broke out.  As I was in the check-out line with my paper towels and oatmeal crème pies, a fight between two girls started on aisle nine.  I told the check-out girl that they could sell tickets and call it the Thrilla near Vanilla (kids, ask your dad about Muhammed Ali/Joe Frazier).  I left before the judges announced their decision.  That brief story is just illustrative of my point that weird stuff happens in grocery stores.  The real story happened a couple of years ago:

I was in Weatherford, Texas (near Peaster where I lived) picking up a few things before I returned to Dallas (where I went to school).  As I waited in line, I noticed a small, elderly lady ahead of me in line who appeared to be staring at me.  I focused on the Tic-Tac rack (scanning the magazine racks is not advisable) for a minute and checked again.  Sure enough, she was still staring.  Now I have a soft spot in my heart for older people, so instead of saying, “Take a picture, it’ll last longer!” I said “Ma’am, is there something I can help you with?”  (My mother would have been proud of me as my mother, but not as my English teacher.  Preposition ending the sentence, and all that.)  The lady jumped and responded “Oh dear, I’ve been staring, haven’t I.”  I smiled and nodded.  She appeared eager to talk: “It’s just that you look so much like my son who was killed in the Vietnam War...”  Now I have to admit, when she said that, I started to get a bit uncomfortable.  It got worse.  After hearing much detail about the son, how much I looked like him, how simply AMAZING the resemblance was, etc., she got quiet again.  Then she asked, in a pleading tone, “Would you do something for me?”  I hesitantly answered with “Well, what do you want me to do?”  She said “I miss my son so much and I never got to say good-bye – would you wave to me and say ‘bye, mom’ as I leave the store?  I don’t live around here and you’ll probably never see me again.  Would you do it?”  As weird as this request was, as I looked at her, I felt like I was looking at my grandmother.  I got the feeling that if I said no, she might die of a broken heart right there in the store.  She was walking all over the soft spot I mentioned earlier.  After a minute’s thought, I finally said “I guess I could do that.”  Her face lit up like Christmas morning, and I knew I had made the right decision.  She finished in the checkout line and headed for the door.  As she began to exit, she looked back and waved: “Bye, son!”  I halfheartedly waved and weakly stammered out “Bye, mom.”  She turned and left.  Breathing a sigh of relief and promising myself to pretend to be Swedish the next time someone speaks to me in a grocery store, I placed my deodorant, toothpaste, and razor blades on the conveyor belt.  The clerk rang me up and announced pleasantly “That’ll be $98.50.”   I looked at him for a minute, then I looked down at my five items, checking to see if I had picked up the Solid Gold razor blades by mistake.  I hadn’t.  I said “There’s got to be a mistake.”  He looked puzzled and said: “But your mom said you were going to pay for her groceries as well.”  Immediately, I realized I had fallen for the ultimate con artist: the mind of Kaiser Souze in the body of Minnie Pearl.  I told the checkout guy “Wait right here!”  (In retrospect, a dumb statement – what else would he do?)  I dashed out into the parking lot, scanning left and right for a short, elderly person with a scarf and a faint odor of peppermint.  There!  At the far end of the parking lot, I spotted her!  She was energetically throwing bags into the back of her station wagon.  She spotted me at almost the same time, and knew the jig was up.  She began moving even faster and as I drew close, she picked up the last bag and threw it in my direction to block me.   I dodged as it splatted on the ground next to me.   As it landed, something immediately drew my attention.   The bag was full of baloney.  

And so is this story.