I made a trip to the grocery store early this morning. I like doing things early, I think it's because I feel more accomplished. I mean, it's nice to say I'm done for the day when I finish errands by nine in the morning, even if said errands means simply brushing my teeth. Plus, the afternoon is hot, people are cranky/ready to go home, and I'm more in the mood to nap than wait in long lines.
While at Albertson's, a store manager was checking me out. Not in a creepy I wanna totally make out in the grocery checkout line kind of way. No, that would have made me vomit on the floor and caused me to subsequently slip and get it all over my clothes. Rather, he was checking my items out. My food damnit.
After the process, another employee came over and said someone (I didn't catch the name) was on the phone and had called to say that he would be a little late because he was looking for his dog. The lady messenger looked as if she wasn't buying the story and upon hearing the news, the manager also looked a little put out. As for me, I was thinking yeah right buddy. But at least he called.
I don't know why I paid attention to that particular conversation. It must have been by default. I tend to not be able to pay attention to any one thing at a time and I think during that moment I was punching in some sort of debit card pin number, which I'm still upset about because I never got to choose it.
Nevertheless, a bag boy put my groceries in my cart and away we went on the awkward trip to the parking lot and small talk.
I never know what to say during these trips. I hate it. I'm sure everyone talks about the weather so I always make a conscious decision not to bring that up. I don't want to ask how his day is because we don't really have the allotted time for him to share with me that his girlfriend just broke up with him on myspace the night before and that he spent his time after that trying to get back with her via text message. Instead, I spend the whole walk thinking of something to say. By the time I think of something, we're already at my car and I ponder, "maybe next time bag person, maybe next time."
I tend to mention which car is mine way too prematurely in a rather poor attempt to get his or her mind off of the fact that I'm not a great parking lot conversationalist. "I'm over there," I usually say when I see the first glimpse of my white bumper. "We can just put them in the front seat," I suggest before we're anywhere close to unlocking my door.
I was driving home, taking a path less traveled, when I saw a guy from a distance. He was wearing a maroon colored polo with khaki pants. As I drew closer, I noticed a black dog in front of him, as giddy as any dog who had just experienced a limited amount of freedom, one that had wondered about and peed on things. When I drove by I realized that on the maroon polo was an Albertson's logo and that this was the kid on the phone. It had turned out that he wasn't lying after all. I sort of laughed to myself, as if my feeling stupid was justified by a boy and his dog. To think that just ten minutes earlier I was thinking to myself, "yeah gooood one."
Sometimes life is cool like that. Occasionally life seems more like a movie than anything else. But then again, maybe life IS one big movie. Maybe someone invented a channel for each person. In which case, I've got to make this blog a lot more interesting.
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