The Tricks of Shopping

It came to my attention late Monday night that I was completely without the essentials of food. Thus it was at 9:30 at night that I braved the wilderness of the West Village to forage for something to keep me alive for a few more days. Specifically, I needed: One (1) Gallon of Milk, One (1) Loaf of Bread, One (1) Jar of Pickles.

This would be the story of how I went out on a three item quest and ended up spending 30 dollars and returning with 9 lbs of ribs and no milk, but it is an intricate and complex story that I don't have the patience for.

Okay, nevermind, I've distilled the essence of it exactly: Jason has poor impulse control and buys everything in the store that looks tasty, but has no memory and forgets what he came for. The end.

As someone once said, it's very difficult to become a novelist when you're as good at getting to the point as I am.

I will, however, present a list of important things I learned on this adventure.
In no particular order:

• Don't mess with the Produce Lady, because she will totally cut you.
• If you get a cart with uneven wheels, exchange it immediately, or you may lose control of it at an inopportune time and crash into a huge display of tuna and make a whole bunch of noise and cause people to stare.
• When a girl gives you a look that one generally reserves for shockingly dressed whores, before you give her a piece of your mind check your clothing to see if she may have a point about the inappropriate nature of your clothes.
• And coming from above...Always check what you are wearing before you leave the house to make sure, a) there are no large holes in your shorts that reveal too much information about yourself and b) that the shirt you are wearing is not so small that when you reach for something on the top shelf you expose your entire torso.

(Jason's Painful Realization of the Night: "Dear God, I'm dressed like a
man-whore in Albertsons at 10:00 at night.")

(Jason's Second Thought: "Do they kick whores out of the store?" [girl walks by] "Oh, I guess not.")

• When you are in the checkout line (apparently dressed like a whore) and see someone from your badminton class last semester, hide behind the impulse items to avoid a very painful conversation that ends with the line "Well, it looks like you ended up doing okay for yourself."

(Jason's Internal Conversation: "Exactly how should I take that? As a
compliment, obviously. But I think he just assumed I was a prostitute. But a good one. Shut up.")

All these lessons brought to you as a Public Service Announcement. May you always have healthy, happy, and solicitation-free grocery runs.