I walked into the supermarket the other day with the intent to buy breakfast items (orange juice and cereal) and nothing else. I have a hard time making it through a grocery store without buying items that are either discount priced or intriguing, such as $2.99 chocolate chip loaf cake or individually sold snack packs of dried apples and cranberries.
I headed towards the cereal aisle first because if I got the orange juice first, it would have more time to get warm while it sat waiting in my cart. Why did I have a cart for only two items? Because if I did decide to buy the loaf cake I wanted a convenient way to carry it. Plus, it makes me look stably domestic – chicks dig that.
As I rounded on the entry to the cereal aisle, I saw a donut standing there. I was not immediately concerned because I took several seconds to scan for my cereal, however, I quickly realized that the chocolate glazed donut with sprinkles of indecision was having a hard time making a selection (in its defense, there are a lot of cereals and if you don’t make the decision before you get to the store, you’re likely not to make it at all and get bagels instead). Unfortunately, it was struggling with its choice while standing directly in front of the General Mills variety packs that I had come to retrieve.
I stood patiently for a moment (everyone deserves time to reflect upon the pros and cons of Basic 4) and then became impatient. It was time to make the donut aware that it was inconveniencing me.
“How’s it going?” Casually said while picking up a bag of Oaty-O’s! (or whatever the crappy Malt-O-Meal knock-off of Cheerios is) and scanning the nutritional information. To myself, “Hmmm, high in fiber.”
“Hot and fresh.” The donut’s response.
I can only assume that hot and fresh is the ideal state for a donut (from my point of view anyway, maybe from a donut’s the ideal state is not “Hot and fresh and ready to be eaten” but instead “Cold and doughy with a long life yet to live”. That question will be left to the philosophers, which I only pretend to be while watching The Golden Girls and trying to decide if it’s really worth getting old.
“Glad to hear it.” A risky statement, given the uncertainty of the donut’s well-being and the total lack of conviction with which it was said, but it gave no indication of being offended.
I’d stopped pretending to consider the Oaty-O’s! and now alternated between staring fixedly at the variety pack and the donut, which seemed to be debating between Grape Nuts: Still No Flavor! Edition and Count Chocula. Clearly, two very different sensibilities were vying for control over the donut’s purchasing decisions. The end result was obvious to me, as it just isn’t in a donut’s nature to be healthy.
“Just gonna reach by you real quick…” I made my move.
“Oh, sorry, didn’t realize I was in the way.” Sincere, but still absent-mindedly spoken.
I’ve always been bothered by the last part of that sentence: “didn’t realize I was in the way.” I don’t really care whether or not you realized it. If you did realize it, then you’re a jerk for still standing there. If you didn’t realize, then you’re either hopelessly unobservant or too self-focused to see the distress on other’s faces when they can’t reach their cereal without risking getting glaze on their sleeve.
Regardless of its intentions, success! After quickly tossing the cereal into the cart and adeptly performing cart u-turn (I’m exceptionally good at cart navigation), I grabbed the $2.99 Chocolate Chip loaf cake and made my way to the self-checkout aisle (I find that I’m often faster at checking out than the people who claim it’s their job, plus it removes the need for pointless, and often weird, cashier-impatient patron conversations).
Once home, I discovered that a $2.99 loaf cake is often listed that way for a reason: it was oily and dry at the same time – an impressive, though undesirable, feat.
