After I fed the three cats on Saturday morning I decided to lie back down just to "rest my eyes." When I woke up again at two in the afternoon, the stink of failure and shame on me was strong enough to force me out of the bed.
I knew that the day would involve a trip to Aldi and much
cooking, as my freezer was completely empty of all the food I had cooked ahead a
couple of weeks before. I wouldn't have even noticed if many of my neighbors
hadn't been banging on my front door Friday night in various states and degrees
of starvation. This included Mr. Jerry, Dave Nexdore, and a young couple I call
Debbie and Harry (even though these are not their names). This horde was absent
the Uber Eater, who was still receiving deliveries from local restaurants on a
regular basis.
As was my custom, I parked my cart on the cereal aisle and
began pulling boxes of Fit & Active Vitality cereal off the shelf until my
arms could hold no more. (In addition to being one of the least expensive
cereals in the store at $2.59 per box, it is the most delicious cereal in the
world. I will fight anyone who disagrees with my opinion regarding this.) When
I turned to unload my haul, the cart was missing!
This has happened to me before in grocery stores, and on
those other occasions I had to scan the aisles pushing a stranger's buggy of
food while looking for the dumbass who took mine by mistake. This time,
however, there was no stranger's cart near the one I'd been using. I didn't
dare drop the ten boxes of cereal crowding my arms for fear that someone else
would pick them up and take off to the checkout, leaving me without my morning
joy for weeks to come.
This vow was for naught.
When I finally found my cart, it was beside a refrigerated
display case being filled with all manner of exotic cheeses by the one person I
knew who would bother. My happiness at seeing Citizen Jim automatically opened
my arms to embrace him, which meant that I tripped and stumbled over nearly a
dozen boxes of my favorite breakfast cereal as I made my way to him.
"Oh no! Don't try and make friends with me, now! How
long have you known about this place and why didn't you ever tell me about it
and look at all this cheese, Stimpy!"
His eyes were wide and crazy, seeming ready to spin out of
his head. Jim's reaction to cheese never changes.
"Could you help me pick up the cereal boxes I just
dropped?" I asked him after glancing behind me and seeing the angry faces
of people blocked by the products I'd abandoned in my useless bid for Citizen
Jim's affection.
"No can do, sis. As you can see I'm pretty busy right
here," he said.
I didn't doubt that. Almost faster than my eye could
register he was grabbing blocks of Edam and Gouda and Havarti, tossing them
into the grocery cart ahead of Gruyere and Stilton, Irish cheddar and log after
log of goat cheese flavored with cranberry, blueberry, elderberry, and dingleberry.
One by one I picked up my cereal boxes and placed them upon
Citizen Jim's growing mound of cheeses. By the time I finished doing this, I
was too tired to shop for anything else.
"Have you just come down here to buy cheese, or is this
part of a bigger mission?" I asked when he threw what I thought might be
the last block of cheese into my grocery cart.
He grabbed one more log of goat cheese and rubbed it all
over his face before he answered. "No, I don't guess I do, now. Or maybe I
do and I just can't remember because I got distracted."
"Well, maybe you'll think of it when we get to the
checkout," I said.
I thought he would push the cart for me, but I'm not sure
why. "Are you just gonna leave all my cheese behind?" he asked,
walking a few paces in front of me and pointing at the cart.
"So you fill the cart with a hundred pounds of cheese
but I'm the one who has to push it to the cashier?" I asked.
"Jesus, woman, my arms feel like rubber after all I
just did!" he said, letting his arms droop at his sides. "And anyway,
there's not going to be any pushing it to the cashier, unless you're paying for
your stuff and mine, too."
"After all that cereal gets rung up, I'll be over my
food budget for the month," I said. "So no. No, I won't be paying for
both orders."
"Why didn't you tell me that back there?" he whined.
I struggled and grunted against the weight of cheese and
metal, finally moving the cart half an inch after a full minute. I stopped,
panting and red-faced, and said, "I don't think there's any way we can
steal this, Precious Lamb. We'd never make it across the parking lot. And this
company is owned by Germans. Who knows how many Lugers we'd have pointed at us
if we tried to get away?"
"Fine!" he said. "I've gotta go. Mama and her
friends are playing cards, and she sent me here to get some party food. But I
guess they'll just have to eat their cigar butts when they get hungry during
the game, thanks to you!"
"So you aren't going to put away this cheese you can't
pay for?" I asked.
"How am I supposed to remember where it all goes? Do I
look like I'm in Mensa? If I don't get back to that poker game to empty the
ashtrays and refill their drinks, Mama's gonna tan my little hide!"
And that was the end of that.
Or so I thought.
My phone rang a minute later. "Don't bother trying to
get that quarter stuck in the cart—I almost broke a tooth trying to get it out
of that little slot," Citizen Jim said. "You can thank me later."
I wasn't so sure about that.