Fiction, by Left of Sean

I don’t like old people.  Yes, I’m callous and mean and a total asshole.  But I can’t help it.  I don’t want to be around old people.

They’re slow.  They stink.  Their minds move at a snail’s pace.  The rest of us in this world have places to be and things to do.  We don’t need to get stuck behind some 90 year old lady at a stop light who can’t tell what color light is shining at the intersection.

My story begins at the grocery store.

I knew it would be a bad trip the second I pulled into the parking lot.  The lot was almost full.  But that’s not the horrible part.  This particular grocery store is efficient.  They will open plenty of checkout lanes so the shopper never has to wait for more than a couple of people to get checked out.

The bad part is deciphering the cars in the parking lot.  There’s an art to reading a parking lot and it takes a little experience.

You have to look at the ratio of certain types of cars to others.  If there are a lot of SUVs, you will have no problem.

SUVs mean soccer moms; cheerleader moms; baseball moms.  They are the moms who don’t have to work.  They know how to navigate a grocery store and have the ability to buy $400 worth of groceries in under 30 minutes.  They can snatch up their child by the collar while comparing the sugar content in three different cereals and never miss a beat.

They are no-nonsense moms who leave a trail of burning grocery cart rubber down the soft drink aisle.  Don’t fuck with this mom.  She’ll take you out and won’t think twice about it.  

And she’s usually easy on the eyes too!

If you look around that parking lot and see Cadillacs, Buicks, Lincoln Continentals or Impalas, run!  This should be your first sign that this will be a bad trip.  Couple this with double/triple-coupon day and you have a recipe for disaster.

I pulled in without really looking at the parking lot, my first mistake.

I got my cart and headed straight for the deli counter.  All was good.  Produce section?  All good.  Salad dressings and condiments?  Getting a little crowded but navigable.

Then came the juice aisle.  The nightmare begins.

Once you’re in, you can’t get out.  It’s like Night of the Living Dead, except these zombies are comparing prune juice concentrate with cranberry cocktail and digging through a mountain of coupons to see if they can get a discount of $0.25.

The zombies park their carts in the middle of the aisle so no one can leave.  They stare for hours at the labels because they can’t see well.  If you get stuck behind a zombie who forgot her glasses, you could actually die in the grocery store, right there on the juice aisle!

Wait a minute, I see an opening.  I head for it.  I’m racing down the aisle, weaving in and out of zombie carts.  I’m agile.  I’m slick.  I’m fast.  I make it to the end without a scratch.  I haven’t bumped another cart or knocked over a display.  I’m home free.

At the end of the aisle I brace for the turn.  I have to have momentum to push me into the rice and pasta aisle.

There’s only one problem.  I can’t see three lost zombies coming around the corner.  Wham! I get clobbered trying to leave the aisle.  I’m stuck.  Three of them surround me at the exit and I can’t get out.  They’re confused.  They’re frightened.  They all stare at each other in a daze.  No one knows who should move first.  I see one lady start to dig in her purse for her glasses and I know I’m going to have trouble.  The male zombie waves his cane in the air and tries to scream obscenities at the one with the pink head scarf, but he’s old and weak and can’t remember what he is upset about.  All he can say is shit, damn, poop….I crapped my pants!!

I look back to the long aisle I was trying to leave.  Shit, they’ve converged.  There’s a wreck halfway down.  A zombie grocery cart has collided with a scooter and the two are stuck together.  Two zombies can’t figure out how to get the carts pulled apart and they’re blocking the entire aisle.  The scooter rapidly going forward and backward, knocking over a display of apple juice.

And then it hits me.  I know how to get rid of them.  I have a plan.  It’s a perfect plan.  It will work, but I have to have confidence and I have to yell loudly enough so they can hear.  Maybe, just maybe, their hearing aids are turned up enough to catch the phrase they’ve been waiting for their entire zombie lives.

I turn to the side and cup my hands around my mouth in a man-made megaphone shape.  I arch my back for that extra boost of volume.  I need all I can get.  I take a deep breath and exhale; this to exercise the lungs for what’s about to come.  I inhale again, a large heaving breath.

And I let it rip…

Free Metamucil on aisle twenty-six!

It’s loud.  The entire store can hear it.  I scream, but it’s slow and methodical.  I can’t take the chance that they won’t understand the message

It takes a moment, more than a second or two, and I see the first good sign.  The man with the cane stops, he turns.  He’s smiling, yet has an evil look upon his face at the same time.  It’s happiness combined with a killer instinct for the zombie food:  Metamucil.  ”Did I hear that right?  Free?…..Aisle twenty six everybody…NOWWWWWWW!”

It takes a minute for them to begin the movement; they’re slow and fragile but methodical in their movement.  It’s like a flock birds…but in this case, snails.  It works.  They start the migration and in a minute or two they’ve all moved to aisle twenty-six.

Freedom at last.  I can shop in peace, but I must be quick about it.  They will eventually catch on.  The store manager will be called over because they will start complaining that they can’t find the free Metamucil.  They can’t find any signs that say Metamucil: Free!

It doesn’t matter though.  I will have completed my shopping by then and the problem will rest on the manager’s shoulders.  Now it’s his problem.  The zombies will complain and blame him.  I will be long gone, leaving a trail of irritated zombies in my path.

They will go home and complain to their children and grandchildren and caretakers for weeks and weeks, maybe even months or years.  It will be a story they tell at the Thanksgiving dinner table; “That grocery store told us that Metamucil was free and they lied.  Why would they do that?”

The children and grandchildren and caretakers will sigh and hang their heads low because they will have heard the story thousands of times.  It will cause rifts in relationships and most likely entice the family members to ship the zombie off to an assisted living center where they will die lonely and miserable……

…..all because I went to the grocery store on the wrong day.  Funny how life kicks you in the balls sometimes, huh?

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