The Audience Participation

Supermarkets and Grocery stores are the weirdest and strangest places in the world. I’ve been to several supermarkets across the globe. I’ve been to the Markets in India, the Airport shops in London and German, the Grocery stores in Dubai, but the United States takes the cake of the weirdest Supermarkets around.
The way people pick produce you’d think they are looking for Gold back in 1849 in the middle of the California Gold Rush. Digging around each little apple or strawberry with a little fruit picker (#fork) and celebrating and dancing like an old prospector when you find a good one! But this is only after they squeeze, prod, smell and pinch each one and taking that poor fruit’s dignity away. I suppose an apple, even if it’s spirit is broke, still keeps the doctor away.

I was at a grocery store the other day and I was blown away at what I saw. There were TV camera’s around this man who looked like a thinner, less successful Mario Batali and no pony tail. They were filming him grilling an average looking steak, which he found necessary to give the history of. “This cow was born and raised right here in Pennsylvania. She enjoyed Meg Cabot books and right before slaughtered her for your enjoyment she was really getting into 50 Spots of Grey.” 50 spots of grey of course the Bovine version of the popular book 50 Shades of Grey, which is about a cow that gets stuck in a McDonald’s drive-thru line. But, back to this man, right in the middle of cooking this steak he looks over and says, “Now it’s time for the Audience Participation of the show!” Excuse me? I never want to hear the phrase “Audience Participation” in any section of the grocery store! If I’m at the check out line and the young fella behind the counter says “Sir, this is the audience participation portion of the checkout, please step over this side and scan your own things, I’m going on a smoke break”, I will slap him in the face.

Now before you get all judge mental on me, I want to say that I worked at the grocery store so I do know what that job entails. I always was put on the 12 items or less line when I worked as a cashier. The thing about the 12 items or less line is that no one realizes that it is 12 items or less. I always used to get the lady that would have enough items in their cart to feed a small bear. And of course I get the dude that stands behind her making odd noises with his face. My biggest issue while working at that job was the old women that came into my line always smelled like cat pee, which is a heavy scent. This scent would cloud my vision and leave all my sense confused and broken. Of course she has coupons sprawled on my counter and I can’t check if they are valid. Sure she had a mountain of coupons but not one item for cats, not even a can of cat food or a cat toy! Mentally I was not in a good place to handle that. Needless to say you should always be on your guard at when frequenting a grocery in America, since you never know who will defiling the fruit or breaking the rules of the lanes.