The tragedy

When I saw prime rib being sold in the meat department, I was thrilled. Prime rib is rarely seen in groceries because the bulk of it goes to restaurants. Then I noticed the “Choice” USDA sticker on the package. The slab of muscle within the cellophane was not a delicious succulent prime rib steak, it was second-rate Choice grade meat the store was labeling “prime rib,” as if ”prime” was not a quality grade, but a cut, like T-bone or sirloin. 

I have since learned that the names of cuts of meat are all non-legal terms that can mean whatever the seller chooses. Fido’s Primerib Meaty Bites. Special Primerib Kitty Kuts. Porky Primerib Flakey Fish Food.

But at the time, I almost cried. I may take meat too seriously. I console myself with knowing that I really shouldn’t buy prime rib in the grocery, because I just can’t cook steak right. Dumping chunks of animal flesh into the slow cooker with wine and onions is much more my skill level. Sometimes I skip the meat and onions and slow cooker.

The consolation

The sign over the aisle listed “toaster pastries,” but after I had searched the length of the aisle, I couldn’t find any among the giantic bags of organic chocolate coconut granola with multi-colored marshmallows. I was grumbling and grumpy.

Until I realized I had forgotten to look on the other side of the aisle. There were shelves and shelves of them! Even the long-desired but never found—probably because I never thought to look for them—Unfrosted Strawberry. I carefully avoided looking too thoroughly lest I be confronted with the horror of Brown Sugar Cinnamon, which are flavors that should not masquerade as fillings. 

The victory!

I accidentally bumped my cart into a woman in an aisle and apologized. She then tailed me through the store muttering imprecations at me, until I stopped, planted my feet, swung my cart toward her, and snarled, “I did not mean to bump into you and I said I was sorry, but if you keep this up I shall do it on purpose!” She scurried, rabbitlike, away. That day I was the victor in the shopping cart battles. 

Other people‘s chills

My husband Mark almost became an alert on those websites where paranoid locals report everything they find suspicious, from video recording devices in a store restroom (which turn out to be smoke detectors), to white vans driven by “Mexican looking” drivers cruising the streets (“The police are involved!”). (The drivers are in fact land surveyors.) 

Parking lots and grocery stores hold particular terrors for the paranoid. On one shopping trip, my husband had waited to get lettuce until I was ready to get in the human-staffed checkout line. When he returned, adequately greened up, I had pushed the cart into the checkout lane and was waiting for the woman in front of me to finish. With no room to get around the cart or join me to unload, Mark went around the cash registers and waited next to the plastic bag carousel at the end of the counter. 

The woman ahead of me finished putting her groceries on the moving belt, and gave the cashier her membership card. She glanced at my husband. 

The cashier rang her up, took her card, gave it back with some cash and started bagging. I’d begun to put my groceries on the belt. The woman glanced at Mark again. 

She was beginning to look nervous. She put her bags into the cart and kept peeking at him. Finally, she steeled herself and, boldly standing up for all women in the checkout line who have thought they were being skulked and stalked, hoarsely demanded of my husband, ”What are you DOING here?”

Mark had been looking at his phone, completely unaware he was being cast as “weird hanging around the cash registers at the store guy.” (“I’m going to call the manager!”). 

I stepped in, ”He’s with me.” 

“Oh.”

He’s not really THAT weird.

Have you had any interesting grocery store close encounters? Share them with us! Email copyeditor@riverreporter.com.