Today we are pleased to bring you another episode of “Wolfpup’s Adventures in Grocery Shopping”, or, “Why Do These Things Always Happen to Me?”. But first, a big shout-out and Happy Birthday to @Beckdawrek, whose extraordinary ability to attract weird happenings appears to be rubbing off on me, perhaps due to some kind of spell she has cast, which I would not put beyond her.
My ambitions for the morning could not have been more humble. I made extra room in the freezer and planned to go get three more of that new brand of frozen pizza that turned out to be so delicious. I was afraid they might run out because the “deluxe” was the most popular variety and they were almost gone.
The good news was that they still had about half a dozen of those left. The bad news was that I noticed the freezer thermometer showed it was way, way above freezing. I called over an old geezer who worked there and he peered at it, and informed me that it was just in its defrost cycle. I say he was full of shit. My fridge has defrost cycles, too, and it never gets warm like that. I put my hand on the bottom rack and it was practically room temperature.
So I put the pizzas back and left. There’s an off chance that the geezer may have been right, but getting food poisoning is not my favourite hobby. It’ll be interesting a few days from now to see if that freezer is empty and the contents thrown out as spoiled. There’s another store in the same chain about ten miles down the road so I pushed the shopping card that I use to make walking more comfortable, with my empty reusable bag, toward the entrance, through the self-checkout without stopping, and out the door.
Well! Something about this action triggered a major red alert! The wheels of the shopping cart locked and an alarm went off. I stopped and waited, fully expecting to be assaulted by a couple of burly security guards. But nothing happened, and then the alarm went silent. My theory is that they had a close look at the security image, and observing the vapid oldster gaping back at them, concluded that he couldn’t possibly be capable of stealing anything. So I picked up my empty bag and left.
Then on my way to the other store I had to swerve to avoid the corpse of a deceased skunk, which was already emitting its distinctive aroma over a hundred square miles of God’s green earth.
I did manage to find the pizza I was looking for in the other store, and I got four more instead of three more (because, why not?) but this other store was built like it was vying for the record for World’s Largest Supermarket. I swear it’s the kind of place that you fully expect to drive into, and then drive up and down the aisles, which would be a fair distance even in a car. I got my pizzas, and also my exercise for the year.
Finally, while in the area, I dropped into one of my favourite other grocery stores, one which is moderately upscale and has a lot of great products that no one else does. I wanted to complement the cashier on what a great store this was, but there wasn’t one. Or rather, there was one (1) all backed up with shoppers, and an express lane also backed up.
So I reluctantly went to self-checkout, bristling with all the stresses of the morning. I put my reusable bag in the bagging area, and the robot spoke to me thusly: “Did you just put your bag in the bagging area?”. This was pretty much the last straw for my shattered nerves. I am not ashamed to admit that I caused a bit of a stir and some tittering in the self-checkout area when I loudly yelled at it “Yes, I obviously did, you stupid mechanical twit!”. I like to think I gave the impression of a retired sophisticated technocrat who could have designed those things better, but I fear I gave more the impression of an old man yelling at clouds. I don’t care. I have my pizzas, and a nice big stash of the makings of good meals for at least the next week.
