Things I Think But Don't Say: Grocery Store Edition

Some of you may know that I have some food issues. I have had said issues for as long as I can remember. I want to think they started when my parents put me on the first of many diets when I was 8 years old, but it's possible the issues began in utero, considering how weird my mother is about eating anything that isn't lettuce.

Anyhoo, food makes my anxiety climb that little scale from 1-10 they tell you to use when you're in therapy. Eating in front of people is particularly awful, but the awfulness depends on my eating companion(s). If I'm eating with Chrissymine, I'll be at about a 3 (and it took at least a year of living with her to get down to that level). If it's Pickolas, maybe a 2. My parents? 10. People I barely know and/or strangers? 8. And when it comes to people I don't know super well but whom I have some sort of affinity for and/or want to impress (aerial friends, for example), you can go ahead and crank it to 11.

Food shopping is another issue for me. I would just rather not have to do it. I lived many years of my life thinking it was not okay to ever admit hunger, so grocery shopping now seems like a huge transgression--the ultimate admission not only that I'm hungry, but that I ate enough of what I bought last time to need more.

Don't get me wrong, the food shopping thing (unlike the eating in front of people thing) has gotten better as I've grown older. As long as I am in total control of when I go to the store, as long as I shop alone, and as long as I go to the same store every time, I can pretty much handle it. I even look forward to it occasionally. But it would be much easier if I could be invisible for that hour or so every week.

I'm pretty much a machine when I get into the store. That's how I get through it. I'm totally focused, I know exactly what I need and where to find everything, and I'm gonna' get in, get out, and go home as quickly as possible. This method of shopping can, however, cause problems when I happen to show up to shop at the same moment when everyone else in Seattle has decided they need to shop too. The aisles get clogged, children cry, people get annoyed because my need to get around them causes them to lose track of what they were talking to their friends about on their cellphones, etc. It's on these trips that I become an absolutely vicious bitch from hell. But no one would know it because I'm only this way in my head, thank goodness.

Silent Rants at the Grocery Store

• "Look, it's really super that you and your entire sorority came to do your food shopping together, but do you all have to walk around in a huge, impermeable, giggling mass so that everyone else has to wait ten minutes while you discuss, vote on, and then ultimately decide against purchasing that particular brand of cookie dough before we can all get around you? I know a grocery store is like a foreign country to most of you, seeing as how you don't eat, but take a photo or something and move ALONG."

• "Um, ma'am? Excuse me? Do you see your child? Yeah, he's real cute or whatever, but he's LICKING the organic broccoli. No, it's not adorable. Excuse me while I go vomit."

• "Look, cashier person, I used to be a supermarket checker, so I know how it is. You're supposed to make conversation with the customers, make them feel valued, yadda yadda. But could you please REFRAIN from making comments about my purchases? I don't need you to draw attention to the fact that I'm buying several frozen dinners. I know I am! Did you think it was a mistake that they found their way into my cart? I hate to cook! I'm a terrible person! Just ring them up and let me get the hell out of here!"

• "Sorry, cashier person, one more thing. If you unpack my cart any slower? I'm gonna' shove you out of the way so I can do it myself. It's not rocket science, it's basic motor skills. Get with the program."

• "Your turn, bagger. Most of the time you all are great, but did you happen to notice that you just packed my eggs in a bag with three one-liter bottles of water? Didja? Do you think that's a good idea? And while we're at it, do you think you could take my sandwich out of the bag with the Clorox and the Drano? Call me crazy, but that just makes me a little nervous."

• (And finally, the thought that is on repeat the entire time I'm in the store on many occasions): "Holy fuck. You've gotta' watch where you're going, aimlessly-wandering-while-talking-on-the-phone shopper. Contrary to what you may believe, I don't personally think it's everyone else's job to dodge you, and I swear upon all that is good and holy, even though it's not polite and not the Seattle thing to do, I will refuse to move one of these days, and my cart will slam into yours so hard, you won't even remember you had a phone."