You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy!
SWI.
No that’s not the international postal code for Switzerland.
It stands for Shopping While Impaired.
We’ve all done it. It’s not a sin. It’s not cause for alarm. No need for a 12 step program. It simply is one of those things that sooner or later binds the human race together in food product solidarity.
It’s a Saturday afternoon. Even though my cable bill is paid, I’ve been watching the NCAA at a local watering hole. I’m on the back side of a little harmless day drinking. It’s sunny and cool and the Asian themed grill with its marble bar tops and big open windows is inviting. The sleek, modern décor is one part Home Beautiful Chic, one part operating room sanitary.
“That’s gonna blow up some brackets,” my bar tender says as we watch a bunch of corn fed white boys from Wisconsin storm the court having just dethroned last year’s NCAA champs, Villanova. I hang my head and finish my beer. “Yup,” I say in a laconic gasp of realization. I stare at the screen knowing that my bracket just became Charlie Brown kicking the football that Lucy pulls away at the last second.
AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!
As I figuratively lay on my back, looking up at an ageless Lucy, wondering why Charles M. Schulz had so much fun with this dastardly trick, I realize that I’m done. My bracket is a briar patch and I’m walking home barefoot. I have just finished watching Villanova crap their pants, blowing up my bracket like a toddler soiling his diaper.
Sianora $5 entry fee, I think as we leave the Grill.
I look back as the bartender wipes the granite counter clean of my crumbs and spillage. It’s as if I had never been there.
On the way home, we commit the cardinal sin of SWI.
That’s when you say you are only going to run into the Publix for one thing and due to your ability to exercise restraint, you end up buying a family gym membership and a riding mower.
We enter the store and immediately make a mistake. We grab a shopping cart.
We should’ve just walked through those big sliding doors. At the very most we could have grabbed a green basket and then walked right in.
Instead, we grab a shopping buggy. Why? Because we are god damn SWI that’s why.
Even though we came for one thing that weighs barely 1 pound, I’m suddenly pushing a cart.
I stare at the empty basket before me. The capacious metallic buggy is just begging us to shop.
“Psssst,” the wheels whistle from the shimmering, newly polished floor. “Saltines and Oreos, Aisle 3!”
It’s like a drug deal gone bad. “You know you want limburger cheese! Aisle 1.”
I just came in for a paper towels. It was suppose to be a surgical shopping experience. A precise point of purchase engagement, a self check out, and bam, home!
$2.00 at the most.
But when you are SWI, throw your best intentions into the meat grinder. SWI opens up a myriad of new aromas, possibilities and revelations.
That’s when I notice the salad section. Wow. When did all this happen? Bags of salad, prepacked, so efficient. You don’t even have to touch it. Some is plain lettuce, some is spinach. You rip open the bag and dump it into a bowl. Remember when you actually had to wash a head of lettuce and cut it with a knife? How 1970’s. How did medieval man survive, I muse.
As we push past the fruit, I realize that I’m leaning on the buggy. It’s a cane with wheels. If it had a pillow and blanket, I would be tempted to crawl inside like a tiny homeless person and cat nap.
“HOBO wake up in aisle 7”
Suddenly for no damn good reason, I’m in the dairy section marveling at all the cheese shopping options at my disposal.
Wisconsin and Swiss and French. Cheese is the international dairy allergy that binds a planet I suddenly believe.
“Constipation in aisle 13!”
That’s when I notice music wafting down from the ceiling. It is soft and almost imperceptible, like a fine mist of auditory splendor. I wait for the 2 middle school boys talking about Combat 4 to walk away. Pimple faced psychos!
As they disappear around the corner, it grows quiet. Just me and the Yogurt and the slight hum of a store cooler. I listen to the guitar picking. I look up at the ceiling. I’ve never really studied the ceiling of a Publix before. It is very white, very sterile, very warehouse like.
“That’s Santana,” I mutter to myself, the notes raining down upon me.
Santana in Publix? You think Santana knows he’s the background music for seniors buying adult diapers?
“Can anyone say Contractual Residual Dispute in Aisle 2!”
I don’t care. Suddenly I find myself dancing down aisle four. I’m pushing my cart with a rhythmic thrust, like this metallic buggy is my steel mesh partner on Dancing with the Stars. Suddenly that wobbly front wheel is a sexy dance move that the judges just love.
“You wobble with a sexiness that has all of America Meowing, Bruno yells pulling his pants off revealing a sequin G string. 10!”
Ketchups of every shade of red call to me, asking me to be their salsa partner.
“I’m spicy one winks,” as I salsa by. “I’ll set your nachos on fire,” another snaps.
“Sorry, I’ve got a date with a box of Cheerios,” I smirk, as I two step my buggy by the magazines in aisle 8.
Fantasy Baseball. Men’s Fitness. Sad Bride Digest.
“Who reads magazines anymore,” I wonder. Everything here is on my smart phone, yet there is an entire aisle dedicated to this section.
“Procurement investigation Aisle 9”
This is where the 12 step program for SWI should be, I laugh.
I look in my buggy. It is loaded with a pound of Starbucks Coffee, cat food, hot dog buns and a six pack of beer. I see cheese and Preparation H itch cream?
“What the hell did I come in for?” I mutter to myself.
I notice a woman dressed in black in the pasta section. She has her glasses on the bridge of her nose, her head is tilted back and she is studying a label on a box of noodles. I try not to stare, but I am SWI and I really don’t care. I stare anyway. I notice that she is intense, so involved, reading the fine print as if there will be a quiz at the checkout line.
I wonder if the woman in black is missing out on life. Does she hear Santana swirling above the rafters. Does she impulse buy tinfoil even if she has 2 unopened rolls in the pantry back at home.
I feel like opening a beer and pouring it down her throat. SWI lady! Buy like there’s no tomorrow I would scream.
I do none of the above as I salsa dance my cart by the woman in black.
“Get a life in Aisle 4!”
I get to the end of the aisle and I do a pirouette with my buggy. It’s choreographed to a wailing guitar lick raining out of the light fixtures. I feel the eyes of the clerks staring me down.
One Adam 12, we got an SWI suspect between aisles 4 and 5. We need a store manager.
I scurry by the milk, resting my chest on my buggy, surfing down the aisle past the margarine, the bread, the cultured cottage cheese.
I throw potato chips and sugar in my buggy on a total impulse purchase. I am both Thelma and Louise and I’m driving this out of control shopping cart into the next life.
I get to the front of the store.
10 items or less is no longer an option. It should have been a no brainer. Now it’s a food felony to even enter that that lane.
“I can take you over here,” the clerk says.
I salsa dance my buggy into her stall.
“Did you find everything ok,” she asks.
I pause. I stare at my cart. It looks like a train wreck of unnecessary food products.
Why did I buy Jello? I muse. Who even eats Jello anymore?
I listen to the final licks of Carlos Santana, mingling with the sounds of scanners and cash registers opening.
As I begin putting my items on the conveyor belt. I notice that I forgot the one thing I came into the store to get.
Paper Towels.
I laugh out loud.
The clerk stares at me.
“Do you want me to bag your milk?”
It is my Charlie Brown moment.
AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!
SWI.
Life’s Crazy™