Shopping

So at 6:30 in the morning the other day, I was walking to my car in the Safeway parking lot. (Hush, people. There's a Starbucks inside. I was not grocery shopping at 6:30 am.) Next to my car was a black Mercedes. With this inside:

What is that? Why, it is a veritable bouquet of Black Ice air fresheners, of course! And!

Here is another! In the same car!!!

I had previously thought black ice caused accidents, but now I know: It smells good, too! So this person who owns this car has decided that whatever unpleasant smell was in there would be solved by approximately 26 cardboard air fresheners. And what is this "Black Ice"? A macho air freshener? Is it racial? Or does it have something to do with S & M? Drugs? I am so out of touch. Srsly.

Anyway, speaking of grocery shopping, I went to Whole Foods the other day, and I took Ari. I forget where B was, but I was feeling brave. I for some reason decided that going to Whole Foods in the middle of a Saturday afternoon with a five year old and buying anywhere near the correct groceries was a plausible thing to do. Fool. I wasn't even in the store yet when it all started to fall apart. First, Ari tried to get out of holding my hand in the parking lot. To understand the severity of the danger here, all you have to do is go to Whole Foods when it's busy. You take your life in your hands just getting out of the car. And then there is the body slam you have to endure for guacamole.

Now, I know all of you people think I'm fat because of that picture from my last post (which I heroically shared for the good of humanity, putting my own personal vanity aside). However! I'm actually pretty waifish. 5'3" and 111 soaking wet. I used to think I was 5'4", but my friend Casey, who claims she's 5'3" but is somehow taller than I am, disabused me of that notion. (Actually Casey is more of a house-guest than a friend, but that's another story, for another day.) One day she and her husband came over with a tape measure just to prove me wrong. They took such liberties! They measured me! Against a wall! Oh, sure, there was some thinly veiled excuse about "finding" my "genotype" or some other nonsense party game, but we all know Casey just wanted me to admit I'm short.

The point is I am little, so the guacamole body slam hurts. And I know this may shock some of you because Whole Foods makes damn good guacamole, but some days I am not even sure it is worth it. Some days I want to give up guacamole altogether, and some days I DON'T EVEN WANT TO GO TO WHOLE FOODS AT ALL, and I toy with the idea of going to (hold your breath) Walmart instead. I know this makes me un-American, but the Whole Foods crowd is ghastly and vicious. I want to be as far away from them as possible. And what better place than Walmart? This is what I was thinking as Ari lunged towards a speeding 18-wheeler in the parking lot, and 17 slow-moving, upper-crustich hippies dawdled and stood in our way, dooming us to certain death. Somehow we escaped, with many of the dirty rich people glaring at us for interrupting their very important Standing In The Way Of Things.

As we entered produce, I got a text from B which read, mysteriously, "cashew cookie." I brightened at this, deciding it was a new endearment and that she was happy with me for supervising our progeny and doing our shopping. I quite liked it. Silly and cute--edible, and with alliteration! I was all grinning and blushing when I received a second text. "Carrot cake." Then a third. "Apple pie." By then even I knew that these were not endearments, but Lara bar flavors. Sigh. Nothing good ever comes out of a trip to Whole Foods.