Home Ec

I hate grocery shopping almost more than I hate shopping for pants. I always manage to get the cart with the one wheel that always wants to turn left and ram the woman in front of me. A worker is always stocking bananas whenever I go to the produce section. Always. Their timing is impeccable. I have to wiggle my way through to snatch a few, like a chimp swiping a snack from his elders. They are constantly out of mozzarella cheese. But the thing I hate most is the lines. You only have one check-stand open out of the 16 you have available? Really? Whenever I am stuck in these lines I am forced to look at the trashy magazines. I learn that yes, Jon really did have an affair with his kids' nanny, and that Kate had a secret plastic surgery. Madonna's adoption finally went through and a woman in Texas gave birth to a baby with a cone head.

Last week I plotted my grocery excursion. My sister recommended I go at the dead of night, because the grocery store nearest my house is open 24 hours a day. I was planning on being dead asleep at the dead of night, so instead I plotted my attack for 10 pm. I made my list and sketched out the aisles, labeling the Xs and Os like the head coach of a football team. Then I assembled my crew. Both of my roommates came. We got one cart and perused the aisles.

An absolute miracle occurred. There was no one stocking the bananas. I was free to move about and choose whatever delectable fruits I desired. We went up and down just about every aisle. I had to majorly stock up because I didn't want to go back for at least two weeks. We kept building the pile in our cart higher, like ancient Mayans building pyramids out of stone high enough to reach the sun. Only, you know, with single serve yogurts, pre-grated cheese, boxes of granola bars, and hydrogenated vegetable oil.

Our Grocery Extraction Team encountered just one opposing group: Cheerleaders. From Amity. The were all giggly and wearing their uniforms with their shorty short shorts and their glittery hair ribbons. We are talking straight up hysterical laughter in front of the cream cheese aisle. They couldn't hold it together. I thought maybe they were drunk, but someone's mom was with them. They were getting all the necessities that a high school cheerleader needs on a late Friday night: Cheetos, Capri Sun, hair spray, apples, and Mydol. These cheerleaders seemed to go every where we went in the store. They ended up being in front of us in line, at the one and only line that was open. The adolescent girls were still being giggly, pointing out Taylor Swift's hair on the cover of Seventeen, and Brad and Angelina's slew of children on US Weekly.

I'm loading 80 pounds of groceries onto the conveyor belt (which is ironically about how much most of them weighed), when Britt, Natalie, and I hear a highly intellectual comment. One of the cheerleaders points to a magazine and says "I'm so pissed. I haven't got this magazine yet, and I'm totally prescribed to it."

Yes, I am sure. Your doctor totally wrote a prescription for you to receive Cosmo. It's for your mental health. I am pretty sure if you are prescribed to a magazine, you need to pick it up in the pharmacy section of Rite Aid. Along with your Ritalin.

My grocery bill totaled $79.52 (which is coincidentally how much one of the cheerleaders wanted to weigh) and I took my bags home. Britt didn't get that much stuff, but Natalie did a fair amount of shopping as well. Stacking everything in our fridge was a challenge, and now it's like a Jenga puzzle every time you pull something out. Only, you know, with peaches and milk and salad dressing, instead of with blocks of wood. Because we're not beavers. Brittany's a duck.

And that is how my late night grocery experience went.