(almost) forgotten tales from farm boy

i meant to tell these stories to j last night but that was before i knew he out was out seriously getting drunk and wouldn't be home until 8. on a school night. so instead i'm telling you all.

like i said in my last post, i went to farm boy yesterday. like i also said in my last post, i had gotten enough sleep the night before so i was less impatient than normal. i was actually surprised at my restraint when not one, not two, but three (!) men in work clothes got in my way over and over and over (cause there were three of them) at farm boy.

without one word of a lie the "leader" was walking in front of the other two, all three with those little metal hand-held baskets, pointing out the various sections.

leader: *stops directly in front of me and points* this is where all the vegetables are.
other 2: oh....
me: *going around, not yet annoyed*
leader: *hurries up and gets in my way again and points to the meat section* and this is where you get your meat.
other 2: *still seemingly not overly offended but captain obvious* oh...
me: *getting miffed. i decide to let them get ahead of me*
leader: *stops half-way through section and points* this part of the meat section is all chicken!
me: *wtf?* get out of my f***ing way!!! *shakes fist angrily**

* no fist shaking actually occured, no profanities were spoken out loud

this happens a couple more times. in the fruit section and the milk/eggs section. batman keeps her cool and her sanity by rolling her eyes and wondering about the odd threesome.

later...
leader: see, they even have a bread section!
me: *running down the leader with my cart, laughing hysterically* -- i wish.
me thinking: why the hell are these guys always in my way? why the hell are they shopping together like the other 2 have never seen the inside of a grocery store before? why is the leader pointing out all the sections? and why are they always in my way?

by this time i was beelining towards the cash hoping not to run into the three stooges again. it would have been much better if someone else had noticed, but i was left making faces and shaking my head at myself. but my restraint was in top form: i didn't even politely ask them to kindly not stop in the middle of the aisle. no. i just went about my own shopping.

and that concludes tale #1. there is a tale #2, but it has nothing to do with me showcasing any restraint. farm boy has this little idea that shopping carts must not enter the parking lot so they have geniously stopped this by placing huge steel barricades just outside the doors. i can fit through quite easily, my cart, not so much.

side story: i had the misfortune of finding this out on a solo shopping trip last october (i remember it was october because i bought two pumpkins - remember this for later) when i had a huge cart full of grocery goodness and i get outside trying to remember where i parked when i ran into the barricade with the cart. what? i can't take this to my car? okay, i'll just leave all my newly-bought food here unattended for anyone and everyone to take. i look in the cart and think to myself, hey, maybe i can carry it all, so i start grabbing plastic bags. then i saw the pumpkins. there's no way. so i ran with my hands full of bags, groceries banging against my legs, to the car, got everything in and raced back for my pumpkins. thankfully they were still there, but to this day, i still don't like the farm boy keep-all-the-carts-out-of-the-parking-lot nonsense. now, back to the real story.

so after i paid i pushed my cart towards the cart line-up area, stop, and am grabbing my plastic bags. an older man does the same thing but is heading to the door well before me. i say to him: wow, you're much faster than i am. he says: i've got less than you, and walks away. before he gets to the doors, he turns around, smiles at me, and says something to the effect that i'm smiling so he's sure that i've had a good day. i say something about the work day being done and that was enough to smile about (getting enough sleep does wonders, i'm telling you). then he thanks me for letting him see my smile because i have such a beautiful smile.

i smile again and walk to my car thinking that i'm glad to have made him happy, but at the same time i'm kinda creeped out because an older man was out shopping by himself and liked my smile. ick. i'm just going to tell myself that he wasn't creepy but nice.

and those are my two tales. have a great weekend!