Napalm and Silly Putty

ADVENTURES IN THE SUPERMARKET

Have you ever selected an item in the supermarket and put it in someone else’s cart? Then you realize what you’re doing and you get sort of an alien feeling?

“Wait! This is not my cart. Look at this! Brown our and sheep entrails. God, I almost put my capers in this cart. Where’s mine? Oh, there it is! The one with the tapioca cupcakes and the mango popsicles. Thank God.”

Or have you ever started to walk off with someone else’s cart?

“Hey! That’s my stuff!”

You have to think fast. “Not yet it isn’t! It’s not paid for. Technically, these things still belong to all of us. And if I feel like shopping out of your cart, that’s what I’ll do. Let’s see, any organic scallions in there? What’s this? Elk milk? That’ll be just fine. You may leave now.”

I’ve found the best way to shop for food is to work up a really big appetite. Fast for several days, smoke a couple of joints, take $700…and go to the supermarket! It’s great. You buy everything!

“Wow, canned bread! Just what I need!”

And all the good things, the things you really love and can’t do without? Well, you buy two of them, because you know you’re going to eat one of them on the way home at a red light.

Shopping hungry is great; you just keep loading things into your cart. But then, after several aisles, you realize you may have overdone it: You find yourself pushing a motorcade of three carts, all tied together with long loops of string cheese. Once again, you’ve lost control.

And so, as you realize you don’t have enough money to pay for everything, you begin to put back some of the more expensive items. Like meat.

“Meat? Twenty-seven dollars? Bullshit! I’ll put back these steaks and grab a few more pound cakes. The kids shouldn’t be eating meat, anyway.”

The nicest thing about putting things back in the supermarket is that you can put them anywhere you want. No one cares. You can leave the Robitussin next to the ham hocks and stick the marshmallows in with the Bacon Bits. They don’t care. They have people who come around at midnight to straighten that stuff out, and in the morning everything is back where it belongs.

By the way, next time you shop at a supermarket in a neighborhood that has higher than average marijuana use, take a look at the cookie section. Combat zone. Half the packages have been opened, and all the really good cookies are gone.

“Where the hell are the Mallomars?”

“Oh, we can’t get Mallomars into the store. Folks line up at the loading dock for Mallomars.”

There are always plenty of crappy cookies. You ever notice that? Shitty, low-priced local cookies? Like “Jim’s Home-Style Cookies. Twenty-six varieties.” I say, “Damn, Jim, if you can’t make cookies in twenty-five tries leave me out.”

Time to head home, folks. Let’s get on the checkout line here and read People magazine. By the way, I must admit I’m a real sucker on the checkout line. I’m an impulse buyer. Anything that’s on display, I want it. I even buy things other people leave behind.

“Wow! Extra spicy diet fudge raisin tartar sauce. Must be a sale. Great. I got the last one!”

One last thought: have you ever been on the express line and tried to convince the tough-looking Hispanic girl with the tattoos that twenty-seven packages of hot dogs are really just one item? I’m always grateful when she finally gives in. “Go ahead, mister, it’s quicker than beating the shit out of you.”