I wanted pizza for lunch
So I walked down to my local Whole Foods – the official retailer of affluent urbanites who want to feel like they’re doing something good for the environment without thinking about it too much.
Making the trip to Whole Foods at lunchtime is almost always a rewarding due to the shit ton of free samples they always set out. Even if their pizza wasn’t delicious, those little samples of the tastes and aromas that my limited amount of disposable income prevents me from experiencing in full normally make the walk worth it.
Normally.
Today, as I walked in, the first of the many samples I intended to indulge myself with was a partially covered tray of gigantic Michigan blackberries. I like blackberries, so I waited behind the woman in front of me while she picked through the offerings with the provided green tongs. Granted, I probably would have waited even if I didn’t like blackberries, but when I reached the container, I was interrupted by the shrill screech.
“Get your shit out of here!”
I looked around to see what someone would have bring into a store for a Whole Foods employee to not only remove them from the building, but swear at them in the process. But instead of seeing a green aproned twenty something with questionable hygiene, I turned around to find a small, shriveled old woman in a bright orange tank top pointing at me.
She repeated herself.
“I said, get your shiiit out of here!”
Dumbfounded and unable to form anything but a monosyllabic interrogative statement, I stood with a blackberry frozen a few centimeters in front of my open mouth. The woman who had enjoyed the tart flavors of Michigan right before me interjected on my behalf.
“You can’t talk to people like that. Do you even know him?”
In response, the antagonistic shrew calmly stated that she did not WANT to know me. Then, as if she were an animated feline, or say, a French Person, she pointed her nose towards the hanging fluorescent lights and stomped away. I turned to my fellow blackberry lover, and the only logical conclusion we could reach was that our fluorescent new friend was merely an incredibly classy individual.
I then continued on my way to the pizza counter, but didn’t reach it before having to walk around the very woman who had no desire to get to know me. When I stepped around her, we were adjacent to the cash registers – the ideal place for her to do her best anime pose, once again pointing in my face – where she used her outside voice to announce that I shouldn’t steal anything from her purse.
Dumbfounded once again, I threw my hands in the air, looking around to see if anyone else had witnessed what just happened. Another woman, similarly complected to me, rushed over wondering what could possibly be wrong with her. I told her that she was obviously intimidated by three things
1. My well-fitting trousers
2. My button up shirt
3. My towering height and imposing stature
That was when I decided that I would spend the rest of my lunch break, for lack of a better word, fucking with her. I followed her closely to the exotic cheeses. Alerted to my presence by her old lady sense, she darted as fast as a decrepit old woman can to the crackers. I ambled over and reached for a box of asiago cheese crisps when she stepped directly in front of me, pointing in my face for the third time.
“YOU. Are bothering. ME!” she shrieked, adding that she was going to call the police.
As she yelled at the top of her lungs for a police officer that would never appear, I calmly told her to go ahead, because “bothering someone” was not a punishable, much less arrestable offense.
In the midst of her screaming, she saw who she claimed was a long-lost friend, but was really just a stranger in cargo shorts and an Afflicted t-shirt.
I made my way over to the Pizza counter, and all they had were pepperoni, sausage, and a combination of the two. So I left with nothing in my stomach but a single blackberry.
I think I’ll get Subway later.
