Adventures in Grocery Shopping
I'm still in the weeds, work-wise (although I did turn in my SACRIFICIAL MAGIC edits on Thursday, yay!) but had some fun here and there over the weekend. Sort of.
On Friday I had to go to the grocery store, to get some stuff for dinner. I'd decided, very optimistically, that I was going to give homemade Ikea-style meatballs a try, so needed ground beef and pork and potatoes (the recipe includes mashed potatoes in the meat mixture). So I head off full of vim, to get my groceries.
Only I couldn't find any ground pork at the meat counter. And I notice this older woman standing next to one of those riding carts, shouting "Hello!" at the empty window into the butcher area. Nobody's back there.
I stand there for a minute, and she's complaining about how there's nobody there and she hates going shopping at that time of ay but she can't drive anymore so is at the mercy of her son and whatever, and then she asks me to watch her little cart and actually goes back into the butcher area. Weirdly, this feels a bit like being the lookout at a robbery or something. I can hear her shouting back there, and picture her slipping sides of beef into her voluminous pants.
This goes on for a minute or two, while I wonder just how much room there is back there, because it sounds like she's wandered into some sort of maze.
Then a male voice starts yelling, and I turn around and see the meat manager (heh heh) heading up the store aisle. He's very angry, and is already berating the woman for going back there where she shouldn't be. And he keeps looking at me, too, while he's talking. So during a pause in his speech I interrupt with "I only just got here," because the woman keeps emphasizing that she stood there yelling for almost ten minutes and nobody came so what was she supposed to do?
She tells him what she wants--I think it was to split up a package of steaks or something--and he heads back into the shop area to do whatever it is, still informing both of us in very definite tones that We Do Not Belong Back There. At which point I start to get a little annoyed, because what was I supposed to do, make a citizen's arrest or something to stop her? She's a total stranger. Yes, I agreed to make sure nobody would steal her cart, but that's hardly egging her on. (And besides, really, there should be some way to call someone to the counter, right? I don't think store employees have no right to step away or anything,but at least leave one of those little clocks with the "Back at" time or whatever, so we know.)
Anyway. He starts to come back out to hand her her meat (heh heh), then pauses and holds up a big white plastic jug. "You're lucky," he says. To me. "I was supposed to put this on the floor, and if I had you would have slipped and died." Again, he's looking right in my eyes as he said this. Like I was frolicking around back there too, only managed to make my escape before he showed up.
He comes out and gives her the package (still heh heh), still discussing how dangerous it is and how special shoes are required to go back there and how awful it was to go back there and shame, shame upon our houses. He's still looking back and forth between us as he does so.
So finally I say, and I quote, "I didn't go back there, dude."
He replies, "I'm just telling you." Because obviously I look like the sort of person who *would* go back there given half the chance, like someone who's just waiting for my opportunity to sneak back into the Secret Butcher Area (that's what she said) and, I dunno, taunt the Oompa-Loompas and rub raw meat on my naked body like Odin Quincannon in PREACHER. The butcher is no fool. He's seen my type before, and knows I Am Not To Be Trusted.
At this point I am trying very hard not to laugh. Part of me thinks I should be pissed, but it's so damn funny I can't help myself. Only I can go to ask where I'd find ground pork and end up in the middle of a scandal. A meat scandal.
I did get my ground pork, wished my apparent partner in crime and the butcher a good day, and grabbed the few other items I needed. The whole thing ended up with a very enjoyable discussion about Duran Duran with the checkout lady and the woman in line in front of me (the store was playing "Hungry Like the Wolf" on the sound system as I reached the checkout. Unfortunately, it wasn't playing anything suitable during the Meat Counter Confrontation, although what might have been suitable I don't know, really. I'm not aware of any songs about raw meat perversions).
The meatballs were okay. But the adventure...that will last forever.
On Friday I had to go to the grocery store, to get some stuff for dinner. I'd decided, very optimistically, that I was going to give homemade Ikea-style meatballs a try, so needed ground beef and pork and potatoes (the recipe includes mashed potatoes in the meat mixture). So I head off full of vim, to get my groceries.
Only I couldn't find any ground pork at the meat counter. And I notice this older woman standing next to one of those riding carts, shouting "Hello!" at the empty window into the butcher area. Nobody's back there.
I stand there for a minute, and she's complaining about how there's nobody there and she hates going shopping at that time of ay but she can't drive anymore so is at the mercy of her son and whatever, and then she asks me to watch her little cart and actually goes back into the butcher area. Weirdly, this feels a bit like being the lookout at a robbery or something. I can hear her shouting back there, and picture her slipping sides of beef into her voluminous pants.
This goes on for a minute or two, while I wonder just how much room there is back there, because it sounds like she's wandered into some sort of maze.
Then a male voice starts yelling, and I turn around and see the meat manager (heh heh) heading up the store aisle. He's very angry, and is already berating the woman for going back there where she shouldn't be. And he keeps looking at me, too, while he's talking. So during a pause in his speech I interrupt with "I only just got here," because the woman keeps emphasizing that she stood there yelling for almost ten minutes and nobody came so what was she supposed to do?
She tells him what she wants--I think it was to split up a package of steaks or something--and he heads back into the shop area to do whatever it is, still informing both of us in very definite tones that We Do Not Belong Back There. At which point I start to get a little annoyed, because what was I supposed to do, make a citizen's arrest or something to stop her? She's a total stranger. Yes, I agreed to make sure nobody would steal her cart, but that's hardly egging her on. (And besides, really, there should be some way to call someone to the counter, right? I don't think store employees have no right to step away or anything,but at least leave one of those little clocks with the "Back at" time or whatever, so we know.)
Anyway. He starts to come back out to hand her her meat (heh heh), then pauses and holds up a big white plastic jug. "You're lucky," he says. To me. "I was supposed to put this on the floor, and if I had you would have slipped and died." Again, he's looking right in my eyes as he said this. Like I was frolicking around back there too, only managed to make my escape before he showed up.
He comes out and gives her the package (still heh heh), still discussing how dangerous it is and how special shoes are required to go back there and how awful it was to go back there and shame, shame upon our houses. He's still looking back and forth between us as he does so.
So finally I say, and I quote, "I didn't go back there, dude."
He replies, "I'm just telling you." Because obviously I look like the sort of person who *would* go back there given half the chance, like someone who's just waiting for my opportunity to sneak back into the Secret Butcher Area (that's what she said) and, I dunno, taunt the Oompa-Loompas and rub raw meat on my naked body like Odin Quincannon in PREACHER. The butcher is no fool. He's seen my type before, and knows I Am Not To Be Trusted.
At this point I am trying very hard not to laugh. Part of me thinks I should be pissed, but it's so damn funny I can't help myself. Only I can go to ask where I'd find ground pork and end up in the middle of a scandal. A meat scandal.
I did get my ground pork, wished my apparent partner in crime and the butcher a good day, and grabbed the few other items I needed. The whole thing ended up with a very enjoyable discussion about Duran Duran with the checkout lady and the woman in line in front of me (the store was playing "Hungry Like the Wolf" on the sound system as I reached the checkout. Unfortunately, it wasn't playing anything suitable during the Meat Counter Confrontation, although what might have been suitable I don't know, really. I'm not aware of any songs about raw meat perversions).
The meatballs were okay. But the adventure...that will last forever.
Comments
The butcher is no fool. He's seen my type before, and knows I Am Not To Be Trusted.
And WOOT! Duran Duran is always a good discussion. ^.^
And "Hungry Like the Wolf" seems like a fitting song for the experience (well, maybe not the song so much as the title...)