I knit my brow in epic condescension as I walk into the supermarket, my refined gaze moving slowly from eye to eye, my own cloaked in 60's style Ray Ban sunglasses. As I walk through the aisles in a deliberate manner, something soft grazes my fingers; a hand, and I almost, repulsed, jerk it away in an exaggerated manner. I turn around to see a small child, maybe five or six, moving away from me, oblivious, her footsteps uneven, her other hand clenched neatly inside her mother's. In my head I playfully scold myself for being so serious, but outwardly my visage is stone. I walk rather quickly into the liquor aisle, my eyes and even my head darting up and down, examining bottles of champagne, looking for both the word "vintage" and a price over thirty dollars. I pick up a bottle, simply to feel the weight in my hands, running the fingers of my right hand down the smooth, myrtle-tinted glass. I'm looking at the label, but I'm not reading it. I place the bottle in the wrong rack and continue my search. I would love to find that Louis Roederer Cristal I sampled at my sister's wedding in July, but am keenly aware that a supermarket, especially one of this caliber, would never carry anything that classy. I'm forced to settle for a Moet & Chandon which, according to the label, is "a soft, sweet, dessert-style Champagne with easy flavors of pear, vanilla and almond that linger on the finish."
I head to the produce section, my dissatisfaction with the selection of wines dissipating into indifference as I pass the oranges, far too acidic for me, and make a beeline for the apples. For this, I carefully remove my sunglasses, but keep them in my hand, putting the wine at my feet and using the other hand to examine the fruit. Picking the right apples requires a trained eye because sometimes contusions aren't always visible at first glance, and although the apple may feel firm to the initial touch, the beautifully waxed skin could be betraying a number of unsettling defects. I bite the temple arm of my glasses as I realize that this selection of produce is anything but exquisite. I look around conspicuously before using my thumb to poke large holes into several Braeburn apples. I walk around to the other side, keeping the wine in my sight, and pick out a few okay-looking kiwi fruit, placing them carefully into a plastic bag before walking back quickly to retrieve the wine.
As I walk to the magazine rack near the entrance, I scan the dimly-lit environment and see several out-of-date televisions all displaying the same stupid advertisement for a bubble-maker. Children in neon green and purple t-shirts and pink shorts with over-sized sneakers are frolicking dumbly in front of said machine. I reminisce about being a kid and never having needed a goddamn bubble machine to keep me occupied. I decide, half-jokingly, that if kids of mine ever asked for a bubble maker, I would smack them in the back of the head as hard as I could. I approach the magazines like a car approaching a yellow light turning red. At first I'm walking quickly, then gradually come to a stop in front of the Entertainment & Arts section. There are several covers featuring the prepubescent faces of today's hottest tween idols. I experience, however briefly, a wave of fury that washes over me, drenching me. I pick up a magazine featuring sculptures, and I open it gingerly. I can make no sense of any of the sculptures inside. They all look like deformed chairs, or deformed children, or deformed hands, or deformed everything. However, I garner an appreciation for the art, as they say, because I feel that in a way, all art is inherently "good" even if only one person appreciates it; in fact, because that one person appreciates it.
I put the magazine in its place, scan the tomes of political commentary, and make my way to checkout lane number four. A song comes over the PA, some generic surf-rock number, and as I wait in line I hear the same three chords repeat themselves in rapid succession, the vocals an afterthought, the production shitty. I do, however, have an appreciation for the drummer's technical prowess, as he provides a rolling, precise rhythm to which the instruments can't seem to keep up. I eye a candy bar in the stand to my right, but decide against it, smiling nonetheless at the interesting dichotomy of simultaneously buying fresh fruit and semi-fine sparkling wine and an overpriced, two-hundred calorie candy bar loaded with nougat and saturated fat.
The elderly woman in front of me is complaining about her coupon. Part of me would like to be a gentleman, to be patient, while the other part wants to fiercely point out to her the expiration date clearly printed in size eight Cambria font near the top of the coupon. The cashier, a young, good-looking redhead with green eyes and light freckles on her nose, explains to the woman, who is unnecessarily hostile, that she will call the manager down. The surf-rock is interrupted briefly by the girl's quiet voice calling so-and-so down to lane four. The music is back on now, and I'm still waiting patiently in line, acutely aware of a very large man behind me, and I can almost feel his impatience bearing down on me. I find some comfort in the fact that I will most likely live longer than he will, and I straighten my posture.
The girl is telling the elderly woman that it will be just a moment when suddenly, she takes her purse out of the cart and simply walks out of the store in a silent rage. I stare in awe, my mouth actually open. Without turning my head away from the woman's vanishing figure, I look at the redhead, who is wearing a remarkably similar expression, then at the manager, who has materialized over her shoulder, and you can almost hear his heart sinking at the realization that he walked all the way downstairs, tearing himself away from the new Springer, for almost no reason at all. He looks at the redhead, and then to all of us waiting in line, blaming each of us in succession with his flitting gaze, and I swear he rolls his eyes before turning to leave.
The redhead sheds her look of disbelief, turns to me, smiling, and greets me in a somewhat lascivious manner, and my cheeks flush quickly, my eyes darting to her name tag, which reads "Denise". I think to myself that Denise is too old-sounding a name for this girl, who is around nineteen or twenty. Paper or plastic? I choose paper before correcting myself and say that I really don't need a bag. Denise bags my things anyway, telling me the total while placing my bag withing reach. She also asks me if I would like to donate some money to such-and-such organization, to which I have a pre-meditated response: "Not today." My fake smile seems genuine enough for her to forgive me for withholding my donation. I pay with a one hundred dollar bill, and she looks fascinated by its crispness, and I feel a small surge of pride in it. She marks it with a special marker which contains a diagnostic chemical that indicates the presence of starch in a counterfeit bill. Mine checks out, of course, and she digs through the drawer for my change, juggling the coins with her fingers. As she hands me the money, her fingertips touch the inside of my palm, and I notice they are rather cold. I place the wad of bills neatly into my wallet after organizing them in order from smallest to largest, the largest bills being at the back, but keep the coins in hand, thinking I might buy a Diet Rite or some fruit-flavored soda.
I grab my lone bag as she bids me good day, her eyes slightly sparkling even in the shitty lighting, and walk briskly away toward the entrance where I parked. Before I reach the door, I stop dead in my tracks. Through the streaked glass I can see one of those charity donation collectors, ringing a bell and staring straight ahead, into the parking lot. If he wasn't ringing the bell, I would have assumed he was dead. I feel the change in my hand and am instantly relieved that I won't have to donate any "real" money. I walk confidently out the door and stand next to the man, my existence barely registering to him. He looks at me with his peripheral vision and I give him a curt nod before counting my change. I have three quarters, a dime, and three pennies. I notice that one of the quarters is in fact a ten-pence, and although I can't see her from where I'm standing, I stare, livid, in the direction of Denise before dropping the ten-pence uninterestedly into the aluminum bucket and pocketing the other sixty-three cents.
