For whatever reason, in my haze of sickness, I thought that
it would be a grand idea to go grocery shopping. The reasoning, initially, was
sound. I needed food, I had money, so made my way to Aldi. However, the timing
was bad. It was awful. Everyone on earth had just gotten off work and they were
all driving their wheeled hate wagons toward this very same Aldi.
Let me describe how people drive in Muncie, just so you know
what I fought with for ten blocks or so: Gets in car, immediately slams foot
onto gas, careens through garage into traffic, swerves to miss bus, talks on
phone while putting makeup on the baby, mistakes green light for red, gets out
and has physical altercation with empty pizza box while other drivers fly
around them, squelches across intersection two seconds after the light turns
red, cuts off other driver, honks at them. Imagine this for ten blocks. It’s
great. I was lucky to make it there alive.
So I get to the Aldi parking lot and a black Dodge Charger comes
screeching around the corner the wrong way and stops dead in front of me. I put
my van in park with cars behind me, because this is not a two-way and there’s
nowhere for me to go. They just sit there. They SIT there. Let me explain this
to you, because there are a disturbing amount of people who don’t know or don’t
care that there are lanes in a parking lot. If you can read the license plates
and see both taillights, you’re going the right way. There are exceptions, like
two way lanes, but this was not one. So eventually the car backs up and slams
itself GTA style into a space, nearly running over an old man who has decided
that that empty space (next to his own car) is his own private storage unit for
the time being. Everyone was happy. Whatever. Fuck a walrus.
Aldi is so busy, though, that my social anxiety kicks in,
which paired with flare symptoms, is awful. So I get out of there and go to
Marsh, and other than having to dodge some people who think they ought to take
up the entire bread aisle and talk on their phone at the same time, everything
was smooth. I should have caught the foreshadowing, though, when I kept hearing
this disinterested wargarbler saying “key on four” over the loudspeaker with
the microphone down her esophogas. I just happen to choose the wrong checkout
lane. The wargarbler was a pale, googly-eyed heroine addict who looked like she
sold drugs to babies on the side. She gets to the couple in front of me and
rings up ten items for the next six hours, and then she’s like “AMMAH SAAAAVE
YOU DOLLAH!” and she gets on the loudspeaker like “kan eye git a keeeeeyyyy on
four please” and then she stands there all slouched over until this tiny,
pissed off bog creature explodes out of the office and jams a key into her
register.
I left the Marsh muttering colorful language to anyone who
came within ten feet of me. Things like “Get the fuck away, get the FUCK away.
Don’t you fucking even look at me.” It was a good experience. Yay social
anxiety.
