Just Turn At The Bink

There are two groceries I frequent. One of them is clean and pleasant and has quick and friendly customer service and relatively short lines and donates to charities with which I am involved, like Special Olympics and the MDA. It also has higher prices. The other one is pretty run down and has very long lines, but the prices are better, so I go there for many things. But you know how it goes, each store has things the other one doesn't carry, and I like the produce and the meat better at one but the milk better at the other. I go to both of them every week in order to get everything on my list.

I wondered for a while last year if I wasn't going to have to stop going to the store with the cheaper prices, because whenever I went there, I saw my stalker. Having a stalker in itself was a little surprising, and very, very creepy. The first time I saw him I was totally unnerved, and I was at the very back of the store where he had followed me, and as I went in and out of aisles I saw him peek his head around them. A few times I would go very quickly down the ends and race into a random aisle in the hopes of throwing him off, (which didn't work) and at the end I headed straight for the back again and nearly ran down a narrow aisle in the middle of the store and straight into a check-out lane. Darned if I didn't see him sticking his head up from another lane looking for me, so I ducked down and stayed that way, and practically ran to my car and locked all the doors behind me. I was seriously frightened, and wondered if it was safe to ever go back.

I did see him again, in the same store, on a couple of future occasions, but I was ready with cell phone in had to call 911 if he approached me. He never did, but I would sometimes see him looking. About this time, we befriended an employee of this store, and I confessed that I thought I was going to have to abandon that grocery. He asked what the stalker looked like, and when I told him he laughed and told me that my stalker was a plain-clothes security man, watching for shop lifters. I was shocked and a little insulted, but we soon figured out why he had pegged me as a likely suspect.

You see, I'm very organized about some things. As all my friends and family know, I live on lists. I make lists for everything, and as the holidays approach I even make a list of the lists I'll need to make. This lifestyle happens to extend to grocery shopping. Naturally, I keep a running grocery list like most people, but I have a two-column list with things I get at the cheaper store on the left and things I get at the nicer store on the right. When I write something on the list I put it in the appropriate column, and my family has learned to ask what side to write something on. Then when I get ready to go to a store, I recopy in the list on another piece of paper in aisle order. So when I enter a store, I am ready to go exactly to where I need to in order to get things in the quickest and most thorough way possible.

Well, I guess the poor security department had never seen anything quite like me. I'd go in the store, pick up a cart, and proceed briskly to the very back of the store and make my way quickly to the front, methodically plucking things off the shelves as I went. They assumed that this was the behavior of a shoplifter, because surely nobody else would be that quick and prepared. Once I had this straightened out with our new friend, I never had another problem, and never again saw my "stalker".

I just returned from that store not half an hour ago, and I had a wonderful time tonight. There was a charming young man at the door acting as greeter, and I asked him where to find the twine. He looked a little puzzled, so I changed it to "string" and light dawned.

"First," he said, "you go right down this aisle to the bink"

"The bink?" I repeated, startled.

"Yes, the bink! You know, where the money is?"

"Oh, the bank!"

"Yes, the bink! That is what I say! Then you turn up the mine aisle,"(I decided against asking) "and go to where the lawn begs and garden things are."

We struggled on for a minute, both laughing hysterically at our attempts at communication. He finally said "You got that?" I agreed that I got that, and he punched me companionably in the arm and exclaimed "You rock, seestaire!"

I never did find the twine, although I did recognize the MAIN aisle when I got there, but I grinned and chuckled the whole time, even through the dreaded check-out line. Life is good, when you can have that much fun at a grocery store.

Love, Spud.