This is what a night out on the town is like when you are over 40. Are you ready?
First, at my friendly neighborhood Fred Meyer, outside in “the strip” is a pizza joint. Which means on Friday night when you come wheeling in the parking lot, you have to watch extra close for other children’s parents who are prone to come walking out into traffic, pizza boxes in hand, without bothering to notice you driving in their general direction. If you’re really good, you can find one of these hungry folks and follow them to their car. Like the other vultures out on a rainy Friday in JULY, you wait for them to put the pizza in the car, buckle the children in, shuffle keys around, change shoes, make a phone call and then pull away, nearly clipping your car, which they did not notice for the last 15 minutes, in order to procure you’re very own parking space. Joy!
But this is just the parking lot! Oh so much more fun awaits you inside this glorious retail establishment on a Friday evening.
You should maneuver as quickly as possible through the doors, as undoubtedly there will be a small group of adolescents in pajamas waiting to use the Red Box or another unlucky mom with toddlers who didn’t make it past the quarter machines. And now you’re inside, you should immediately dodge right to get out of the way of shoppers with carts who are trying to escape. This should be a signal to you that it’s time to leave, but you bravely press on. It’s Friday and there is ice cream beyond these obstacles.
Thankfully, Fred Meyer has nice, large isles so you only get cornered by other carts twice: once when a frightened shopper abandons her cart and makes a clean get-away, and again when a sweaty throng realizes there are only two in-store coupons left for the deodorant which is on the weekly special. You will make it to the ice cream section easily as long as the Blood Chilling Cries of the Tired Babies doesn’t do you in first. These poor kids have recently finished a grueling week at a compulsory institution, not of their choice, had their hearts set on a happy weekend at home with their Wii, when they were unceremoniously stuffed into a car seat and taken to the Super Market At Dinner Time. Their howls and screams echo off the cement floor and tins of coffee, threatening to throw you off course. You must not be distracted: if you try to give them cookies their parents will turn on you too. They are single-minded: they only need to get ONE THING before they can get home and make dinner. Do not stand in their way.
You get to the ice cream isle. You do not find the B&J flavor you really want because, let’s face it, Fred Meyer’s sucks that way. You settle on NY Super Fudge Chunk and head for the Family Friendly isle, post haste, bypassing the inconceivably chaotic self check isle where small, tired children lean on scales causing their grownups to wave frantically at the one bedraggled attendant for assistance while the computerized voice tells them calmly to, “Please take the item OUT of the bag”.
The Family friendly isle seems like a likely choice…it’s at the far end of the store, “family friendly” is usually a deterrent to the single folk, and there are only two other people in line. You are casually standing there, with your ice cream on the conveyor belt, scanning the rags for more news on the latest “Bachelor” when you realize that fate has dealt you one final blow: ahead of you in line is one of the deodorant coupon holders who is in the middle of being checked out when the checker finds out that this shopper only has ONE deodorant coupon for the 20, yes twenty sticks of deodorant she’s trying to buy. There is a short conversation about the problem of there only being one coupon, which is followed by the checker picking up the phone to call someone over. This new person is sent on a mission. A Mission to Get More Coupons. It’s unclear just how long you’ll be in line at this point. It’s a toss up as to which would be faster – stay in deodorant line and wait, or move over to one of the other lines, all which have at least 3 of the aforementioned tired children wrestling a parent for lifesavers in them. You choose to stay put. The nice helper returns from her Hunt of the Wiley Deodorant Coupon with 3 more, which means that now the checker has to un-scan 16 sticks of deodorant.
As an aside, who, on God’s green earth, needs 20 sticks of deodorant? How much of that stuff are you using? And if you’re stocking up for an emergency, can I suggest something that will serve you better than deodorant? Cigarettes. That’s right, you heard me. You don’t have to be a smoker to know that if they whole world goes to hell in a hand basket, stinking is going to be pretty far down on everyone’s list of priorities. Altering consciousness however, high, high up on the list. So to speak. And a pack of cigarettes is just about the same size as a stick of deodorant. You see what I’m saying. Also, if you’re planning on stock piling a bunch of stuff people will want badly…ammo. You're welcome.
The end is nigh! You are checking out! There were paper bags! And now you’re headed back out to the parking lot. You not only get to the car without having to dive out of the way of a frantic cart-pusher, but the car in front of you leaves just ahead – your perseverance pays off and you pull out of the parking lot with the ring of Victory in your ears. Turn that radio up! Crack the window a little (not too much, it’s still raining)! Sing loud! It’s Friday night, you just survived Fred Meyer AND you have ice cream. It’s gonna be a good night.
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