Because of affordable college meal plans and late night pizza joints, It had been a substantially long time since I had stepped foot inside a supermarket. Coming home from the simply written yet mildly entertaining Blue Crush, My parents immediately sent me out to Winn Dixie to run some pre-dinner grocery errands. The list included such items as potatoes and corn. I, of course, used this time to indulge my own interests of home eating.

See the last couple of days I’d been eating out all the time. I guess my appetite was low for stale Cuban crackers and chocolate coated cereals. Pulling up and locking out, I walked to this warehouse of daily tasty pleasures. It wasn’t until I left that I realized that this was no regular American convenience. Supermarkets are in reality, vast empires of proportions only noticed by those who have never been there before…Or in my case, haven’t been there in a while. My re-emergence and supermarket enlightenment was at hand.

It all began when I stepped before two giant stainless steel doors opening at my very presence. Mechanical servitude is truly the American dream of this new millennium, isn’t it? It’s what Jack Hanna and Joseph Barbara visualized at the thought of the Jetsons. Beyond that portal lies a realm of delicious fantasy. The smell of clean food and mopped floors washed over me like a rainforest cascade while memories of grocery trips with my mom sprung up like a Vietnam Veteran re-living the battle at Midway. It was sensational. In all senses of the word. Honestly, my first thought after inhaling that sweet nostalgia was that this aroma would quickly cover up my odorous stench that had plagued me from not showering for so long. What can I say? I’m 18 and summer vacation was winding down. Do I honestly have time?

My journey began from right to left. The first lane was simply and cleverly organized: Fruit on the left, vegetables to my right. I had entered a world of simplicity. Being the typical guy that I was, the thought never crossed my mind to get a shopping cart or even one of those convenient plastic baskets with the painful iron handgrip. As most guys do, they’d rather go in, carry all they intend to purchase in one armload and head for the lanes immediately. I’d like to quote my comedic guru Jerry Seinfeld now: “When you go into a supermarket, you really have a sense of purpose don’t you? After a few minutes though, you’re walkin’ along saying…`Why did I walk up this aisle anyway’…It’s like a casino: No clocks, no windows, no easily accessible doors.” Anyway, the produce aisle in itself was a sensuous cornucopia of colors and freshly spritzed harvest. After picking my small plastic bag of pre-selected Idaho crop and Glad wrapped bundle of corn I headed for the cereals. Since my brother delights only in the crunch of wholesome sugarcoated chocolate puffs brandished by a cartoon vampire, Now was my chance to finally get the stuff I like. Granted, my selection was equally as healthy with Cinnamon and Sugar swirled all over every bite. I figured though that the Cheerios I bought, although frosted, served some nutritional value. Honestly, I was faced with a massive wall of wonderful choices.

I walked past all the charming corridors of food and I fell in love all over again with some old friends. These friends hang comfortably over every aisle to remind the efficient and timesaving shopper of exactly what the aisle-experience will be like. Those overhead signs spell out in six quick blurbs what you’ll find and you really appreciate them for what they do. Without going in one, I know that a certain aisle contains feminine products, diapers, toilet paper, deodorant, foot creams and toothpaste. So of course I dash to the end of the hall passing the feminine products without a glance to get to my toothpaste. It’s a small sacrifice to the deities of quick shopping all thanks to those overhead signs working like traffic signals to minimize time for the modern consumer.  

Finishing my work at the supermarket, I head for the checkout line where I meet my next nemesis. My fearsome foes are the tempting covers of such ridiculous periodicals as the Globe and Star News. They beckon me to read on Lisa Marie’s new marriage and Julian Robert’s illegitimate lover. Occasionally I give in to the leaflets of freak “Bat- Boy” or Nostradamus’s next prediction of global catastrophe. They truly do entertain me for those seven to fifteen minutes of wait until I am up to pay. Until then, I use the plastic divider tool to keep my Twix bar from fraternizing with the Lays potato chips of the stranger before me. We fool ourselves into believing that we do this for the ease of the cashier but deep down we all know that we don’t want anyone to think that our carefully selected items have anything to do with the ridiculous selections of the intruders in between us.  To my right I see an extensive array, an arsenal almost… of scrumptious candy hell-bent on spoiling my dinner. Or so my mom has embedded into me. These are the devil’s food and I shuffle past to swipe my credit card and wish the friendly cashier and bag-boy a pleasant evening.

The deed is done. I have successfully and beautifully danced to the harmony of one of America’s finest grocery establishments. After a platonic and impersonal dialogue with the cashier (who just happened to be a student at my former high school)…I proceed past the coin machines targeted at crying children accompanied by their mothers who are at their wit’s end. I walk out the door and into the night, which is oh so dark compared to the near-daylight of the inside of the market.  I walk past the cars of the people who attempt to seize the same beast that I’ve just hog-tied myself. The task of completing one’s groceries. Approaching my car I notice that the entire trip was an act of judgement: I come into the store to judge what I truly need in my life for the next week or so. I judge which brand of what I need suits my diet, tastes, and choleric intake percentage. I then judge the quality of life and character of my shopping peers by the items they themselves have chosen to put onto the black conveyor belt of final purchases, because after that…there’s no turning back. (Because God knows you can’t run and get something really quickly because the guy behind you will hate your guts no matter how soon you return)

- J.Ro