I am Sisyphus, self-checkout is my boulder

 me @ my past self who ever thought grocery shopping could be fun

Before I was married, I actually fantasized about grocery shopping with my husband. I thought it would be a real party, a true bonding experience. Just imagine it! The elevator music playing over the loudspeakers as the fruit guy stares at you for an uncomfortable amount of time. You pluck a grape from the bag in your cart and feed it to your man while the thunder recording plays from the produce section. The white bread is on sale. Sexy, right?

Well. MAYbe I was a bit naive back then (whoops, I still am, don't ask me when I found out how eggs are made).

Now, I'm more realistic. I have a plan. I try to go late at night when there's fewer people, and never ever on a Monday night. Weekend nights are surprisingly quiet, but only if you go after 10pm (wow that is a huuuge window. Huuuuge.). I'm usually not "dressed up" (i.e. wearing anything besides my pajamas) if I'm going to Wal-Mart. If I'm going Smith's, I'll throw on some lip balm and conceal the pits under my eyes. Oh, and Houston comes with, but only if the laundry is done (we're usually pulling double duty with laundry and groceries on the same day, and doing both of those things can really take a toll on someone's spirit, amen).

I started running into way too many former students at Smith's, so I pivoted, and now I go to Smith's Marketplace. It's like a weirder Fred Meyer (one aisle over from the milk, they're selling garbage cans and oven mitts with cats on them). 

It's cool because I can buy my food there but it's not cool because I overthink everything:

• Are these produce bags just for the organic produce? I don't wanna get charged for organic produce....they feel so thick...hmm
• I think I've seen that man here before. Oh no he's coming over here I hope not to talk to me.
• We don't need butter, but it's on sale.
• Grabbing a cart when the employee is trying to put the carts back at the same time is muy stressful!
• It is actually comical how long it takes me to decide on which loaf of bread to buy. 
• No it isn't. Because fiber. 
• I can't go down that aisle because somebody is already in it.
• These avocados are already halfway to guacamole.
• Yeah I think that girl just caught me singing a song about the pasta sauce...to the pasta sauce. I hope she's not in my ward.
• Never pay in cash unless you have exact change, because the trauma of spilling any coins the cashier gives back to you and holding up the line will make you want to fake your own death.

This last Saturday night, I had too many groceries for self-checkout, but there was only one regular checkout line open and the line was (here it comes again) huuuuge. So I went to self-checkout. A band of youths was just standing there staring and laughing and it was like the hyena scene in Lion King, and I was the elephant about to get eaten (really, it was not that dramatic). But the guy who helped me did have a ponytail and a clip-on phone case. And then I forgot my box of cereal in my haste to run.

 

 this is exactly it.