By Jim Hagarty
2016
I long for the days when stores weren’t open at night. Or early in the morning. Or 24 hours a day.
On Thursday, I was wandering around a grocery store at 7:30 in the morning looking for a loaf of bread. Later that day, at almost 9 p.m., when I should have been snuggling in my onesie with the dog on my lap watching some ridiculous TV show, I was instead the designated senior out shopping for milk and eggs with my old man discount.
I finally got through the checkout, and as I placed my booty in the basket, the egg carton peeked open, revealing brown eggs. I thought, rightly, that we always get white eggs.
So I went back to the woman at the checkout who wasn’t pleased. “Give me your receipt,” she said. I fumbled through my overladen pockets and produced the already crumpled receipt. She checked it over, then wondered aloud how we were going to do this.
“What if I just give you the cash for the brown eggs and then you can use that to buy the white eggs,” she suggested. “Aren’t they the same price?” I wondered. No, the brown are more expensive. The chickens have to be in a fowl mood to poop out the brown ones, I guess.
So, the clerk gave me $3.50 in cash and then trundled off huffily to get the white eggs. But, before I could be on my way, she produced a form I had to fill out, to prove I am not some sort of serial egg exchanger, I guess. I had to fill in my full name, address and phone number (in case the egg inspector or one of the chickens needed to call, I guess.)
So after the paperwork was done, I gave the woman some coins for the white eggs, and departed, leaving her less happy than when I arrived.
I don’t get in a bad mood very often these days but when I do, I am like a car driving off a cliff. I go down, face first, very quickly. I was a raving lunatic by the time I arrived home.
So these were the bookends of my day. Early in the store for bread, late in the store for eggs and milk.
They say life was simpler in the old days. It was. You sat down, made a list, drove to town, bought all your stuff and drove home. Went in the house and never came out again. What would have been the point? NOTHING WAS OPEN!
Even the goddamned chickens were sleeping. (See, I’m still mad.)
