Shopping
When you're at the grocery store, do you ever look at other people's carts to see what they're buying? Or when you're checking out, do you look to see what the other person's put up on the conveyor? Not nosing your way through their stuff, necessarily, or even making a point to do so...just casually.
I do. Sometimes when I'm wandering through the store, but especially when I'm in the checkout lane, and I've already read all the covers to all the tabloids.
I shop off-hours, here lately. Really late at night or really early in the morning. Very rarely will I hit a store at its peak shopping hours anymore.
I was at the Wal*Mart a few minutes ago, buying a few necessities (beef jerky, garlic and three gallons of distilled water), and I'm in the checkout line, and I observed:
The man who was leaving the lane just as I was putting my purchases on the counter was buying, among other things, a very large turkey. I have no observations about this, except to say I've secretly wanted to see what happens when somebody uses one of those big 20 or 25 lb. turkeys to clock somebody else. I mean, just come up behind somebody, grab the turkey by the handles, swing it in an arc and just lay the victim out with a Butterball.
The lady in front of me isn't buying anything out of the ordinary. She was buying quite a bit of Sun Drop. A couple of 12-packs and six 2 liter bottles. But that's not so unusual, for these parts. For the unwashed, Sun Drop is a citrus soda a bit tangier than Mello Yello, and a bit more sugary, too.
It finds the largest part of its intensely loyal following here in Middle Tennessee. As an example of the the loyalty SunDrop instills in its regular drinkers: At my old job, we replaced a co-worker's Sun Drop with Mountain Dew one afternoon on a dare, and he got fighting mad when he took a swig. Of course, I got blamed, which is appropriate because it was my idea.
In retrospect, he wasn't that balanced an individual, and we knew that fact going into the involuntarily taste test, so we probably should have his temper tantrum coming.
Anyway....
More interesting in the checkout line was the feller behind me. He was buying two items early this morning. He set his purchases on the conveyor belt right behind my necessities. The first thing he put down was a giant sized box of the Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies. And right beside it, he placed an EPT Home Pregnancy Test.
I must have dallied a bit longer in my observation than was polite, because he then moved the pregnancy test behind the Oatmeal Cream Pies.
I met his gaze, gave him a polite nod, one which he didn't return, and started pretending to study the cover to the current issue of Glamour. I couldn't tell you whom or what is on the cover, because I was wondering this:
Which of that man's two purchases was the one thing that he'd originally decided to come to the Wal*Mart for? The Pregnancy Test or the Oatmeal Cream Pies? And which was the other thing he was buying just so that he wouldn't look like he'd come out into the cold and dark simply for Oatmeal Cream Pies?
When you're at the grocery store, do you ever look at other people's carts to see what they're buying? Or when you're checking out, do you look to see what the other person's put up on the conveyor? Not nosing your way through their stuff, necessarily, or even making a point to do so...just casually.
I do. Sometimes when I'm wandering through the store, but especially when I'm in the checkout lane, and I've already read all the covers to all the tabloids.
I shop off-hours, here lately. Really late at night or really early in the morning. Very rarely will I hit a store at its peak shopping hours anymore.
I was at the Wal*Mart a few minutes ago, buying a few necessities (beef jerky, garlic and three gallons of distilled water), and I'm in the checkout line, and I observed:
The man who was leaving the lane just as I was putting my purchases on the counter was buying, among other things, a very large turkey. I have no observations about this, except to say I've secretly wanted to see what happens when somebody uses one of those big 20 or 25 lb. turkeys to clock somebody else. I mean, just come up behind somebody, grab the turkey by the handles, swing it in an arc and just lay the victim out with a Butterball.
The lady in front of me isn't buying anything out of the ordinary. She was buying quite a bit of Sun Drop. A couple of 12-packs and six 2 liter bottles. But that's not so unusual, for these parts. For the unwashed, Sun Drop is a citrus soda a bit tangier than Mello Yello, and a bit more sugary, too.
It finds the largest part of its intensely loyal following here in Middle Tennessee. As an example of the the loyalty SunDrop instills in its regular drinkers: At my old job, we replaced a co-worker's Sun Drop with Mountain Dew one afternoon on a dare, and he got fighting mad when he took a swig. Of course, I got blamed, which is appropriate because it was my idea.
In retrospect, he wasn't that balanced an individual, and we knew that fact going into the involuntarily taste test, so we probably should have his temper tantrum coming.
Anyway....
More interesting in the checkout line was the feller behind me. He was buying two items early this morning. He set his purchases on the conveyor belt right behind my necessities. The first thing he put down was a giant sized box of the Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies. And right beside it, he placed an EPT Home Pregnancy Test.
I must have dallied a bit longer in my observation than was polite, because he then moved the pregnancy test behind the Oatmeal Cream Pies.
I met his gaze, gave him a polite nod, one which he didn't return, and started pretending to study the cover to the current issue of Glamour. I couldn't tell you whom or what is on the cover, because I was wondering this:
Which of that man's two purchases was the one thing that he'd originally decided to come to the Wal*Mart for? The Pregnancy Test or the Oatmeal Cream Pies? And which was the other thing he was buying just so that he wouldn't look like he'd come out into the cold and dark simply for Oatmeal Cream Pies?
posted by Tommy at
08:12
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