Often I go grocery shopping late at night...I prefer it because there aren't many other people shopping at, say, 11pm on a Sunday night. My fear of the supermarket (not a fear, really; perhaps an unease) stretches back decades, and the only reason I can come up with that it makes me uncomfortable is the residual feeling of shopping while stoned.
Not that I was stoned a lot back in the day. That wasn't really my thing; pot made me too sleepy and stupid. I can manage that quite nicely without narcotic intervention.
I do remember feeling vaguely claustrophobic back then. People were EVERYWHERE. And they were all in my way. And then there were all those choices I had to make! It's worse now; there are a lot more brands and reconfigurations of the exact same thing (Now New and Improved! Now Even Better! Same Thing, Just New Packaging! Don't Be Alarmed!). Whatever happened to me in the supermarket 30 years or so ago left a lasting imprint on my brain.
But last night, I decided to try something different. I took the ipod. The first four songs that played took me back to my teen years: "Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys" by Traffic; "Day After Day" by Badfinger; " "Love Song" by Elton John; "Down by the River" by Neil Young. (I really do have lots of songs from the 21st century on the ipod, really, I do; please, I'm not ready to die yet...)
The effect? I completely zoned. I sang along. Sometimes it was hard to concentrate.
I grew rebellious and goofy. I moved the expired yogurt to the front of the case, and wrote a little note to alert people that they expired. I cringed at Rachel Ray's perky, greedy, smiling face on the box of Triscuits, and wrote "EAT ME!" on the box and left it on the shelf. I finally plodded my way to the checkout.
Whoa. I had been there for 2 hours. How the hell did THAT happen?
Like I was stoned again. Maybe they oughta outlaw ipods.
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2 comments:
Great post. I also tried shopping with the iPod once, and it was great. I felt like I was in a crappy musical with cheesy props and lots of product placement.
Did you go prancing through the aisles like Kevin Bacon in Footloose? Or grab a broom from "housewares" and pretend you were Bert in Mary Poppins? Somehow I doubt it.
I liked the ipod too; it was a better alternative than hearing Celine Dion, or, inevitably, Whitney (and IIIIIeeeIIIIIeeIIII will always love YOUoooooooooooooah) on the "Supermarket" channel. But man, I totally lost 2 hours of my life doing that.
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