View of Sue: August 2012

I've missed the last few blog prompts at Absolute Write but I'm back in with this months prompt:

Fire and Ice

You can do either or both, compare and contrast, or anything else that suggests itself. Write wherever the prompt inspires you, fiction or non-fiction, prose or poetry. Do try and keep things at a PG-13 level, though.

I don't know what happened with this post. I just let it go where it wanted.

Tempers were short that day my friends

"Please wait for assistance, please wait for assistance, please wait for assistance." The grocery store wants me to scan my own food, weigh my own produce and put it all in a bag myself? And the Italian bread at the bakery is a dollar more than it was the last time I bought a loaf there? Hold on just one minute. This is an act of lunacy.

Tempers were short in the grocery store that day my friends. Maybe it’s the higher than normal temperature and humidity. Perhaps the lack of rain, maybe we humans, like the outside vegetation, need to be watered once in a while too. Or the earth is preparing itself to crack open and swallow us up on December 21, 2012.

Whatever it was, the grocery store was in chaos. There were employees scattered around helping us morons communicate with the machines that have replaced them. They'll expect us to catch on to this modern age of grocery shopping. Haphazardly scanning our own Rice-a-Roni, with no one there to listen when we say,

"Did you scan that twice? I think you scanned that twice."

The computer generated voice barked out its orders and if we didn’t follow them, lights began to flash and the voice commanded,

“Please wait for assistance.”

A little old man wandered back and forth looking for a cashier, hopelessly lost, wondering how he was going to get his food home. That’s when I snapped, my heartstrings were stretched far enough to take action. I stood on the grocery conveyor belt, swinging my rather expensive Italian bread over my head and screamed,

"We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore.” I pumped my fist in the air for emphasis. And as if they were waiting for a leader to emerge, my minions responded with a resounding yell of defiance. They dropped their 10-pound bags of potatoes, their orange juice and their fabric softeners raising their arms in the air. I had successfully whipped a crowded grocery store into frenzy.

Before I knew it I was lifted in the air, given a mop as my scepter and someone had quickly fashion a tin foil crown to place on my head. For I was the leader of the Great Grocery Store Rebellion of 2012. I pointed my scepter towards the customer service counter and said to the manager,

“You sir, remain where you are and we shall return with a list of our demands.”

We assembled in the frozen food section opening all the doors to feel the arctic blast on our sun soaked sweaty brows. The frozen air mingled with the hot tempers in the aisles, creating swirls around the angry mobs heads providing temporary relief from the equatorial summer heat.

“Ma’am, ma’am?”

“Huh?”

“What seems to be the problem?”

A cashier was talking to me, jarring me out of my daydream. She turned off the droning of the computer generated voice and flashing lights. I could see another cashier helping the older gentleman scan his Ben-Gay and prune juice.

“Ma’am?”

“Uhhh, I tried to weigh my bananas.”

“Let me help you with those.”

She pushed some buttons and I didn’t bother paying attention as to how bananas are weighed and scanned. I was too busy turning on my reality brain cells that I had inadvertently let grow dim or perhaps the sweltering heat had affected them because I usually have a pretty good grip on my brain cells. She spoke to me again.

“Can I help you with anything else ma’am?”

‘You can stop calling me ma’am and while you’re at it wipe that fake smile off your face.’ I said with my inside my head voice and with my outside my head voice,

“No thanks, I think I’ve got it from here.”

“Okay, have a great day and try to stay cool.”

What did she mean by that? There is no way she could know my plan of the Great Grocery Store Rebellion of 2012. I thought to myself as I bagged my own groceries. I opened my eyes a little wider, tightened my grip on reality and headed for the exit. As I reached automatic doors it felt like the very gates of hell opened as a wave of at least 200 degrees enveloped me. Tempers were short that day my friends.

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Friday, August 17, 2012

Tempers were short that day my friends