I Still Got It & Staying One Step Ahead Of The Bad Guys

The usual at least once a week stop at the grocery store was in order tonight, I jockey it back and forth from Tuesdays to Wednesdays as it’s important to change things up, don’t wanna be too predictable in the schedule for those sketchy bulky guys who surely have heavy foreign accents and have been on your tail recently waiting for just the right moment to black hood abduct you into the trunk of a sedan that is too small for them where you listen for possible location sounds of maybe trains or boat horns or airplanes, thinking you’re so smart to do such just in case, to an eventual nondescript abandoned warehouse in the (mad lib a one here) district to find out just what you know about that thing and everyone involved in that thing that accidentally interfered with THEIR thing and that they don’t believe for one second that YOUR thing stepping on THEIR thing was an “accident” at all.

(after pulling off your hood quickly and menacingly) “Who sent you about our thing??!!!”

So, on this Thursday night (just tryin’ to stay one step ahead) I made my way in, did my round from the right of the store to the left, tomatoes, a red onion, some cold cuts and cheeses on the right to that Tuscan White bread discovery from not too long ago, but a bread need thought holding in the back of my head for as long as possible as it’s waaaay on the left (just at the head of the beer aisle) and that end of the store can take a while, like forever!, to get to, so I clutched it hard in the noggin as ya can’t make a sandwich without it, didn’t wanna forget, then hit some aisles in between.

The one with the Arizona Green Tea that also includes this store’s bargain items that I eventually buy one or two of that I don’t need thus making them not really much of a bargain after all, the one with dressings (do you need some new Bleu Cheese for future wings and Cricket the Blind shared dinners or maybe mayo or horseradish mustard for aforementioned sandwiches), the aisle for beverages and my Polar seltzers, the pet food aisle and hoping you might find something for your other pet charge, Bella, that she might finally not turn her nose up at in her finick with a disdainful southern belle-esque swish of the head as if I were the worst cat dad ever “Do you even know me?! Hummphhh!!”

But in the midst of my searchings here now of some Fancy Feast choices there was this dude.  

He looked confused.

“I recommend the Savory Centers” I said.

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s sorta cat crack-like”

“Thanks. My partner has a cat named Cecil, he’s kind of a dumb cat but I’ve been sent”

“Well, sent solved. Can’t go wrong with the Savory Centers”

He then proceeded to tell me of Cecil the dumb cat and a Cecil the dumb cat story followed with small talk.

“So, how was your day?

“Ummm, Ok, yours?” (well, Bella might like this one, I thought, as I continued my search head down in the shelves checking off “yes Bella’s” and “no Bella’s” and “maybe Bella’s” in my head)

“Alright but tiring”

“Me too but hey, tiring is alright” I say “as long as we still got gigs that pay the rent and buy beer and cat food right?”

I tell him I have a couple of cats of my own and know my cat stuff, and have had more in the past, maybe even enough at one time once to qualify for crazy cat lady guy status.

More small talk then …

“Hey, are you straight?”

“What? Oh yes … yes I am”

“Damn, that’s too bad”

“Sorry to disappoint my friend”

“Well, you are a good looking guy”

“Jeez, thanks … much appreciated”

Some laughs and a “have a good night”, “cheers dude, hope the savory centers work for your partner’s Cecil the dumb cat” and we were on our way.

Then I was thinkin’, ya know, if I were an older and gay Ralph Malph from Happy Days I would have said to myself, to the camera, “I still got it!!”

—–

At the check-out, where I used a Vanilla gift card I bought on the dark web, I loaded my few items into a reusable bag from a rival grocery store and nonchalantly made my way out the back of the store through an “Employees Only” swinging door and then out the loading dock where, earlier, after changing into a plain dark ballcap pulled down tight over my eyes and momentarily leaving my cart in the paper goods aisle (the paper goods aisle can take some time figuring the TP ply, deciding on just the right paper towels, name or store brand, do I need, as a single guy, the colorful decorative tissue boxes or is plain alright etc, the perfect cover) I had slipped out to move my car and then slipped back in to my cart with plain tissue boxes in hand (I thought of the decorative ones but I’m kinda boring).

I laughed to myself, driving off, thinking at the sure bulky sketchy guys with heavy foreign accents driving around the parking lot in a too small sedan loudly cursing in said heavy foreign accents as to how I had managed to give them the slip yet again.

(I do watch a little TV by the way).