The Grocery Store: A Place of Food, Idiocy and Cat Camping

Waiting in line at the grocery store is an interesting experience. First, and I don't know about your local grocery store, but mine is staffed by three people and there is always twenty people at each line. So, already it's an awesome experience.

Secondly, I don't think people fully understand the "express lane." I'm not even sure they can count or understand the word express. I swear, every time I'm just buying milk some genius in front of me has 26 items and has decided to pay with a check. All I can do is give them a cold stare as they look at me, as they attempt to place their over the limit items on the smaller conveyer belt, and say with their eyes, "Oh, I know what you are thinking, but these twenty tomatoes actually count as 1 item, so I'm technically okay." Really? Because when we get out to the parking lot, I'm going to take my 1 car and quickly, no in an express manner, into your 2 legs.

Lastly, what is the deal with what people buy at the grocery store. Today a guy in front of me bought kitty litter, a pineapple, soda, waffles and beef jerky. Is this guy taking a cat camping? Or is he in the middle of a random quickfire challenge on Top Chef? Too hard to tell.

Flashbacks

My junior year in college I lived in a house with eleven of my teammates. Yep, you read that right - 11. This house exuded craziness. How crazy? Well, try these on:

1. After a week straight of partying, to kick off the new year, of course, a few cops stopped by to regulate the madness. After a short conversation, one of the cops got the number of my roommate (who he started dating) and the other cop started to party with everyone. From that point on we had constant back up and no reports of disturbances were ever responded to.

2. Another roommate of mine decided each night she was drunk she would steal something. Consequently, by Christmas break we had a deck full of bar stools, rocking chairs from our neighbors, signs and plants.

3. At least once a week a night of fun turned into a night of "gooning out." For those of you not blessed with the opportunity to go to school with meat heads, "gooning out" entails getting blitzed and then destroying everything in sight. Therefore, each week we had either a bench (that had been stolen the week before) thrown through our door, a couch thrown out onto the road or a window just bashed in. There's nothing more fun that hearing the sound of broken glass and then the yell from a barbarian. Man, I miss college.

Okay, enough down memory lane. The reason I bring up these memories is because I thought, at 32, living in an apartment with my husband would be much simpler than it was in college, but I was wrong. For the past week I feel like I've been trapped in a bad time warp.

For example, on Monday some idiot, at 2 in the morning, started throwing glass bottles onto the road outside my apartment. Now as if this wasn't bad enough, I then got to hear cars go over the glass, stop, yell at the guy to stop, him yell back and then more glass thrown. (Now that I think about it, I wonder if I went to college with this guy. It's just so hard to cut the gooning habit.)

On Tuesday, and I'm not kidding, some lady was heard screaming, "Help, Help!" in an alley just outside my apartment. We then all got to sit in our beds and listen to her run, scream some more for help and then go silent. To be honest, after being awoken the second night in a row, I don't know what bothered me more, her being potentially killed outside my apartment, or the fact that some neighbor across the street kept yelling, "Are you there? I called the cops. Are you there? Hello." Lady, no one answered. Not our chair, not our problem.

And lastly, after being awoken up by some muscle car that just couldn't turn over (thank heavens the person tried ten times) I heard the familiar laughter and stumbling of a drunk chick outside my apartment. I listened to them for awhile and prayed they would move on, but it continued. Finally, I got out of bed and looked through the window just in time to see one of them attempting to go number uno in our bushes. That was it. Immediately, I went into college Kate mode (this means I either call the cops on my own house, or head out to the situation to yell at anyone I can find) - I chose the latter. So, there I was, old Duke t-shirt, pajama pants and hair everywhere, ready to fight, but as I rounded the corner to our lobby I found three drunk chicks, one clueless guy and a naked girl. Yeah, a naked girl. All of them looked at me, and immediately said, "Oh sorry, it's a batchelorette party and she, pointing to the naked one, had to go swimming in the ocean." I was completely dumbfounded. So, all I said was, "Oh, congrats. Well, night." Night? Congrats? Have I really been out of college that long that I couldn't come up with at least a decent lecture or raised voice? How about a disapproving face? Nothing. All those years of training and now look at me. Pathetic.

*The picture is what I should have done.

Be Honest

(The coordinated ones. I usually surround myself with them. It's part of my contract.)

A few weeks ago I was Utah running a lacrosse camp. After almost 16 years of running sport camps I find that I have mixed emotions about them. One, I think it's great that kids go to camp. I mean, if kids don't go, I don't get paid...I mean, kids don't learn and get better. And yet, two, I just wish there was a screening process prior to sport camps. You know a little agility course they have to complete in a certain amount of time. Or they have to send in a tape of them running and then we can determine if there is any athletic ability at all. You know, something. Because honestly, this floodgate of minivans packed with overpaid sticks, cleats, clothes and uncoordinated children has got to be curbed.

For example, after the first day of lacrosse camp I surveyed my motley crew of campers and this is what I found:

• 3 Girls wearing deeply chaffing jean shorts with soccer cleats and Justin Bieber T-Shirts. 3. Yes, 3 different sets of parents allowed this attire for camp. Not acceptable.
• 5 Girls never put their hair up in a ponytail, but awkwardly ran around the field with unkempt manes. I'm sorry, you are not an athlete if you think running around like Pocahontas is a good idea.
• 2 Girls were forced to sit out for the afternoon because they had hurt themselves during lunch while they were playing "catch." (They were throwing to each other. That means one got hit in the face, cried about it and then hit her friend in the face.) Not acceptable.

And finally...

• 1 girl was riding her lacrosse stick around the field like a broomstick. (Hey Hermione, Gryffindor called and wanted to know when you were headed back to Hogsworth.) (So, outed myself just then.)

Anyway, as I always say after running lacrosse camps: Parents, please, please take a good look at that kid of yours. Be honest. Be brutally honest. Are they coordinated? Are they wearing jean shorts? Should they be at a camp involving balls? Answer these and save us all some time.

I Don't Get Paid Enough

Do people even check this anymore?

Well, after two years plus of serving at a restaurant I thought I had seen it all...and then Thursday morning took place. If you are eating please stop. If you have a delicate stomach stop reading. Okay let's continue.

At 8:30 in the morning, there were two individuals sitting on the patio of our restaurant. After refilling my customer's coffee I turned the corner of the patio to check on my co-worker's customer. As I approached her table I noticed she had placed her credit card in the server book to be run. Now, let me state that this woman was on the phone and had her back to me. As I approached her table I began to ask, "Would you like me to run this card for you?" At the exact moment I was reaching for the book, this lady lifted up her derriere and proceeded to loudly fart on me. Now, words cannot adequately express the horror I felt as our eyes locked while she released her morning gas all over me. (It was like looking into the face of the Devil. You want to run, but your body just won't work.)

After a few awkward seconds, I regained the control of my body and ran for the door of the restaurant. Once inside, I tried to find acid, lighter fluid, gasoline - anything that I could use to burn my throat and eyes. I could NOT believe some lady, that looked like my dear mother, had lifted up her butt cheek and farted on me! Now, I've cleaned up mashed bananas underneath a table, I've pulled hair out of food and I've reached into the trash of discarded food to save a spoon, but this...this...this was on another level.

So, what have I learned from this experience? 1. Always make myself known in all situations. I might even start screaming, "Hey, coming around the corner. Hold in all anal acoustics* and other bodily disasters until I've passed." 2. Try to block out my co-workers' responses. One said, "I mean, that's okay at home or in your car, but not at a public restaurant." Okay? No, that's not okay. Or this one: "I mean, I do it in here (meaning the restaurant) but it's loud with music." (Mind you, I don't walk behind this person anymore.) and 3. If I hear a funny noise on the phone I'm no longer believing when the other person says, "Oh, that was weird, my phone just made a weird noise." Right. Who farts while on the phone?

Again, so glad my college degree from Duke is going to good use.

* I found that description at: http://www.heptune.com/fartword.html