Modern Day Shopper

This is a short story about how I often feel when going to the grocery store.

            It’s an ugly thing. That normalcy that escapes me. I’m sitting in my car working up the courage to do something no one takes a second to consider. Even now it’s alarming. Blaring. The sunlight through this window shield that’s never shielded me. My eyes. My headache. My time. All I need is to grab some deodorant and a new toothbrush. Basic hygiene stuff. Basic human activity. It is laboring. To sit in this car and to be afraid of this beautiful world.

            Deep breath and a quick gulp. Headphones in black to keep out the hush. Purse, wallet, car keys, and phone. I check them all off. This is something that I can do. Connect the blue tooth, play something anticlimactic. Play something that won’t make me remember that I’m active. Play something with so little expectation it will exceed them. Watch out for reversing cars, the kids, the grocery baskets, and the wheels. Keep your pace fast but not too fast otherwise you might cause a stir.

            What are they thinking of me? Am I too attractive? Am I not attractive enough? Does my sensuality offend? Does my sensuality invite them in? Do they look down on me or do they think that I look down at them? Can they see my shoulders tensing? Do they know that the dream girl is having a nightmare? Every shimmer an accomplice of the sun, plotting against my straining eyes. Every speed bump propelling my anxiety forward in a way that rudely interrupts my sense of time. Confines my perspective to nervousness. Creating choices that I have to make. Rush along and risk running in front of a moving car or slow down and allow the car to disobey the pedestrian rule of indefinite principality.

            But now, I’m in. The white, blazing lights illuminating my path to the deodorant isle. I do a silent sing along to the song bruising through my speakers. I pass by woman with child, uncle with aunt, biker and bus driver, a hunter of mixed nuts. I bend down and collect my favorite brand. A comfort: reliability. I change direction. I search for my favorite toothbrush. Around the bend. Act normal. Pretend. Pretend that my skin isn’t itching, isn’t squirming, does in fact, feel fine. I remind myself that this is safe. I am safe. It is not too much. These lights. These camera phones. This collective shopping syndrome.

            I remind myself that this is a privilege. An open market like this. No more caveman hunting for leaves and berries. No more dirty fingernails. No more bare feet on grass. Although, I wonder if I would have preferred it like that. When we were all equals in the wild. All equally as riled up at some unknowable predator hiding between the trees. Contemporary cartons of milk and bags of cheese. Between the blades on grass that tingle on our insensitive feet. Would I have been just as desensitized in a time when defenses were up for the entire census? Or was I always meant to shake in undetectable earthquakes, holding on for dear life as the babysitter considers frozen pizza?

            To the cashier I go. Each time they’re always so beautiful. So young. So, fresh out of high school or fresh out of tenth grade or fresh out of someplace that doesn’t hold you for long, just long enough. In from Sunday Service, in from stay at home duty at the kitchen counter, in from a job that fell through, so now you work part time here. I stare at them and marvel in a polite jealousy at the way they can stand under florescence and not seethe. They stare at me and juggle that exercised curtesy with the knowledge that they have to stand here whilst I within the next few minutes, can leave. Each of us, on the other side, has something the other wants. To neither of us, would it occur, the audacity to take it.

            For me it is impossible to be someone I’m not. How am I doing today? They ask this every time. I’m doing good. I’m doing fine. I’m doing well, thanks. Swipe, swipe. I am pleased not to have caused them more trouble. Like those troublemaking customers with twenty items in the fifteen items or less. They did not sign up for this. I have gone easy on them. Given them pay with underwhelming labor. I can do this. This is something that I can do. Through the slight muttering of my headphones, I can murmur. “I hope you have a great day too.”

            Out of those magical sliding doors I go! These doors the early 1900s people would have gaped at. I take no heed; I am blissfully ignorant. I enjoy this freedom with the fever of someone that has just regained it. I am a self-possessed woman. I can do the grocery shopping. I can take care of myself. I can check off the lists. And all it took was my ability to exists in the ambience of modern day living. Bright lights. Sharp sounds. And every aura imaginable touching me like those handsy church women, buttered down in coca.

            I am happy now. I am slightly smiling. My clever smirk has gained an audience with the baby pressed against the window. Just a few more feet until the luxury of my car. I press the button and those little locks unlock. I am in. My headphones come off. My doors are relocked. I toss my accomplishments into the passenger seat. I connect my Bluetooth and readjust my music to something with more of an upbeat. That ugly thing. That normalcy. It almost ate me alive the way unslept hours do in the midst of a carnivorous test. But alas, I have feed the beast. I am victorious. An adequate modern day shopper, at best.