I wondered what day it was when I had to park my car in Antarctica and walk to the local grocery store. It was 11am on Tuesday. But the traffic suggested that maybe it was Saturday, and I was just confused. Christmas was over. The herd of shoppers had promised to return to their houses heaping with previous purchases and back to their desk jobs at their cluttered cubicles. But it seemed we were experiencing an extended holiday season. Thank you, corporate America.
Whining children were pushed in carts by their unconcerned mothers. Children that should have been pushed in carts, zigzagged incoherently in the aisle. Families shopped together in packs, stalking and hunting their next big purchase. This was what I had hoped to avoid by doing my Christmas shopping on-line.
I rationalized that the screaming children were still on Holiday break, and their parents couldn’t leave them home alone. Someone should tell them that a little bit of Benadryl and a ball gag goes a long way. And everyone knows that duct tape is multipurpose.
It wasn’t just the families with children either. Everyone was out. The senior shoppers walked painfully past the 50% Christmas decorations, debating on whether or not that $1 item was really worth that much. Everywhere I turned there was one standing in front of me–limping with a cane or driving a large Amigo. And then they would suddenly stop and block the aisle.
I wasn’t there to bargain shop. I had a list. I needed onions and milk and bread. I had a legitimate reason to be there. I worked Christmas, and it was my day off. I wasn’t on some extended Holiday. So get the fuck out of my way!
Apparently, this week was supposed to be a big Christmas shopping week. I didn’t get that memo. I suppose everyone had to spend their gift cards right away and scoop up all the cheap deals. Like they don’t have enough shit. I know I have enough shit. This is what turns people into Hoarders. These super bargains and advertisements touting how much we need something and how much we’ll save—when really we would save more by never buying it in the first place.
I prefer to shop between 11pm-7am. No screaming children. Empty parking lots. When I turn down an aisle, I don’t have to navigate around anyone except for the stockers. And they’re harmless—not like shoppers. Shoppers have poisonous fangs. They emit gases that make the aisles spin and your chest grow tight. And if they touch you—even brush past you, you could die instantaneously. If I look down any aisle and see that I won’t be able to keep a safe passing distance between me and one of those shoppers, I go to the next aisle.
It’s not that I don’t like shopping. I enjoy going down each aisle at the grocery store in consecutive order. I like to read the labels and touch new items. When I’m looking at non-food items, I’m attracted to silver, glass and bright shiny things. But other shoppers and their offspring make it a haven of death. I don’t like to feel that I’m being rushed. I don’t like someone standing too close or someone hovering behind me, waiting to get their leach hands on the item I just touched.
Or what about those shoppers who stand right in front of my brand of milk—1% Organic. Why couldn’t they be standing in front of the Lactaid milk or the eggs? It’s like they are doing it on purpose–to break me. So they can crack my skull open and eat my brains.
And those self-check out lanes. I’m okay with them unless someone is standing impatiently behind me. They sigh loudly, shift their weight several times and fidget. That makes me nervous, and then I can’t concentrate. Those are the same shoppers that start to scan their own groceries and send them down the belt before I have even started bagging mine. So I start throwing things into bags. When I get home, I discover smashed bread and injured tomatoes.
Shoppers are dangerous, so I lay low. I buy my things at night and make purchases on the internet. When I do go to the store, I wear camouflage and spray around the perimeter of my car with shopper’s urine. Because you can’t reason with a cannibal. They’re savages.
Postmortem Life 