Shopping...

I have to admit it. I hate shopping, I freakin hate it. I hate it the way a frenchman hates an american chef.

Apparently I have always lacked the genes necessary that cause people to enter a store and randomly toss cash into the air near any salesperson.

Ah, the salespeople, smile like a shark and the ability to sneak up and spray you with some wretched new perfume with a clever name like “Homogenous for Men”.

“When you want to smell just like everyone else”.

So I lack the shopping gene, but what I lack in that department, I make up for in triplicate when it comes to the idiot gene. That’s the gene that makes men hold babies by their feet, causes brain function to cease upon seeing large breasts and to shout Whoo Hoo! at their wife while shaking their johnson – each and every time they take off their pants.

This is how it goes…

My father, mother and I head out to Waldbaums, a grocery store in Bensonhurst built for the filthy teeming masses in search of the ultimate in coupon savings.

When we arrive, my father and I race into the store, never looking back and grab the first cart we see. It matters not if it is full of someone else’s groceries or even that an arthritic 78-year old grandmother is still attached to it.

Experience has taught us that those bony little fingers will lose their death-like grip eventually and she will go sailing off into the frozen foods case at no less than 70 miles per hour.

So we whiz down the aisle, aisles that each week are being made more and more narrow in an effort to stop people from shopping there. Sparks fly off our cart as we scrape our way down and into aisle 2 – Oats, Toilet Paper and Fishsticks.

Mind you, we don’t buy anything. Heaven’s no, that’s Mom’s job. Unfortunately she does not have a cart. No matter how many times we do this to her, no matter how often she sees us racing off into the distance, she never gets her own cart.

Must be some gene she lacks.

And she is positive that we will be waiting just at the end of the next aisle for her but we will not be captured so easily. In her mind she thinks that she will be able to drop off the 51 items she has picked up and is now stumbling around with.

Can you believe it, she wants to put her things into our cart? Our cart! Doesn’t she realize that we had to put an old lady in traction to get it?

When we’re sure that she can’t catch up to us on account of the stroke she is having in aisle 3 (Diapers, Soy Sauce and Margarine) we slow down to better examine the fantastic flora and fauna that is Waldbaum’s.

We zip by the cologne/perfume aisle. It’s to be avoided at all costs. This is Brooklyn so that particular aisle is 15 feet wide and carries no less than 13,000 types of cologne. The scents have all combined into a hazy miasma that threatens to make one sterile and blind. This EPA disaster is caused by many of the young studs that roam fair Bensonhurst and think nothing of coming in and spraying themselves before a hot night of cruising 86th Street. Why pay when you can sample?

Today’s consumer hint: You may not want to buy deodorant at this store.

We come to a complete stop in aisle 17 – Toothpaste, Gym Socks and Sex Toys. The “stock boy” (I say “boy” sarcastically since he appears to be no less than 57 years old) regards us lightly then returns to his task.

He is digging in his nose and this is a far more delicate and involved task than you can imagine. He won’t be sidetracked by us gawkers.

So entranced is he, two knuckles deep, that he has completely forgotten the 100-odd cans of cling peaches that are strewn about the floor, creating a shopping cart traffic jam so large that it is visible from space.

Dad: What do you suppose he has in there?

Me: Dunno, looks like he has a really good hold of it, though.

Dad: Are you sure?

Me: Yep, it even looks like he i….EEEWWWWWWW!

Sounds of us sprinting from the aisle.

Soon we regain our composure. With thoughts of nostril contents behind us we move into aisle 31 – Chicken Parts, Halloween costumes and Melba Toast. We relax some and agree never to speak of that man again as long as we both live.

Now it’s time for us to discuss other shoppers. My father and I can’t believe how two handsome devils such as ourselves have come to be shipwrecked on the damaged genetic peninsula that is Waldbaum’s. Here in Darwin’s Waiting Room, we study and record the comings and goings of this evolutionary fiasco in progress.

Amongst the mop holders and cans of Cheeze Whiz, we watch the endless parade of mishapen hairdos, blinding pastel housecoats, neon hair curlers and even individuals who appear to be conversing with delegates from the planet Wacko.

They’re all here. Why is that? And why hasn’t someone dropped a bomb on this place on a Saturday morning. Don’t they realize the good they would be doing?

As we turn into aisle 136 – Batteries, Vaseline and Pasta, we realize that once again, we have to come to the end of our trip. There in the distance is the checkout girl. A gap-toothed mother of 7, fathered by 6, dressed in hot pants and no bra is waving us in. It’s like we’re going home.

And we are going home, we are leaving this land of geriatric coupon thieves, miscreants recently paroled and other “citizens” of this fine city and heading back to our own house of where everything seems just a little more normal…

…for us that is.

And there is Mom, hair disheveled, mascara running, cigarette dangling from her bottom lip, cursing under her breath as she tries to balance a gallon of milk, head of lettuce, 26 cans of cat food, a tub of butter, bottle of tonic water, loaf of bread, 8 rolls of paper towels and other assorted items in her arms.

Somehow she still manages to give us the finger.