Trigger warning: I’ve written another blog about a personal experience.
What follows here is nothing of the sort.
It is an inconsequential moment from an unimpressive life.
Get out while it’s possible for you to.
Yesterday, this happened:
I stopped at Whole Foods for my weekly grocery sourcing.
Lately, in an effort to rebalance my life, I’ve been cooking far more of my meals.
I find it therapeutic until the smoke alarm goes off from air-frying plain broccoli florets.
I then spend that money on expensive clothing in some rebellious counteraction to my efforts at balance.
Clearly, whatever it is that I’m looking for, I’m yet to find.
Now, I do something that some might deem… a little quirky at the grocery store.
Straight up, no protection, like I’m harvesting a garden with a wicker basket in Amish country.
I can’t remember when I stopped putting my stuff in the bags.
At some point I realized it was a waste of time and plastic.
Maybe the turtle thing played a factor.
I saw a post once that showed how floating plastic bags look exactly like jellyfish, aka turtle food.
I can imagine that thin produce bags are themostdifficult to distinguish from jellyfish.
Think about all the plastic bags you know, and imagine them billowing around a kelp forest.
Produce bags have to be at the top of your jellyfish doppelganger list.
When I arrived at the checkout counter, I began placing my items on the belt.
Suddenly, an elderly woman behind me tapped me on the shoulder.
She was holding two of the plastic produce bags.
I do not understand why, or how, she had extras.
“Will you put your items in these bags?”
There are moments in life where a person must choose whether to give in or fight.
I actually APOLOGIZED first and started to reach for the bags.
Why… why would I do that?
Was I committing some unwritten grocery store foul by having my produce lay butt-naked on the belt?
If any of this were true, then how come no checkout clerk had ever mentioned it to me?
Surely, there was no foul.
I grimaced: “Sorry…
I don’t want to do that.”
I was cold about it, too.
You guys would have been proud of me.
*Turtles are reptiles, not amphibians.
I know; I didn’t see it either.
Some people don’t like that.
Bitch, it’s you.
Don’t hide behind an invisible crowd.
This is a one-on-one duel and you picked the wrong fucking guy.
I continued loading my produce on the belt.
I even thought about dragging it in circles to create as much surface contact as possible.
But if I’m honest, I wasn’t exactly thrilled by the idea.
A man has his limits, and my poor broccolini bunches were looking AWFULLY exposed.
All this time, the checkout clerk had been silently watching this unfold.
I did what I often do in these situations and turned to the people for a ruling.
As of this writing, my Instagram poll has been voted on by 6,556 people.
93% took my side.
In politics, they might call that a supermajority.
