Trips to the Store. I

¶ … trips to the store. I was craving pizza and nothing else was going to do. I thought Kroger would be better than Wal-Mart because it takes forever in Wal-Mart. It was late evening and the sky was dark. The lot was half full of cars and told myself it would only be a minute as I zipped up my jacket and skipped across the blacktop to the door. The store seemed too bright and smelled it of wet towels in a steamy bathroom.

I found myself behind a couple in their mid-30s in the frozen dinner section. I was making my way to the pizza section when I heard them arguing over prices. The woman stood facing the freezer isle flipping through a handful of coupons. She focused on finding a particular coupon while the man, almost a foot taller than her, mumbled something about the name brand being more economical than the store brand version. "Mine's cheaper," she said. "Give me the coupon," he said.

He moved closer to her and snatched the coupon from her hand. "The store brand is cheaper," she started. "Okay, show me how your brand is cheaper than this," he said, waving a box of Stouffer's lasagna in the air. "Look, the store brand in 3.59 and yours is 4.18." "Let's see," he said. "We have a coupon for 30 cents off and it's double coupon day. Mine with the coupon is 3.58. it's cheaper than yours, okay?" he snapped, tossing the box into the basket.

"You're wasting your time with those things because you don't know how to shop. You think because there is a coupon somewhere, it's got to be the better deal. it's not always that way." He said walking as she pushed the cart behind him. His hair was shoulder-length and brown. He wore a pair of old blue jeans and a flannel shirt over a black t-shirt. She pushed the buggy behind him with her purse spilling open in the seat of the buggy.

On top of her opened purse, lay a large accordion-style envelope stuffed with coupons. She was trying to walk, push the buggy and stick the unused coupon back into its respective place when she hit his heel. He sucked air into his mouth quickly and turned with an angered look on hi s face. "Can you watch where you're going? Jeeze, that hurt. Pay attention." He made a motion with his hand that was like a slap across her face but he never moved closer to her.

"Okay, sorry," she said putting both hands on the buggy. Her hair was long and messy. She walked behind him with her head down most of the way as she flipped through her coupons. The notion of pizza broke my concentration and as I stopped to look for a frozen pizza, the couple turned the corner. It seems I had a big decision to make as my eyes moved across the variety of boxes.

There were small pizzas, large pizzas, pizzas with extra cheese and special ingredients, pizza rolls, and pizza bites. I looked for the cheapest brand, picked it up, studied the box, decided I would need more cheese and turned toward the cheese. At the cheese, I picked up a bag of shredded Italian cheese and headed toward the register. At the front of the store, I looked for the shortest line. The 20 items or less line had more than a dozen people in line so I opted for a shorter line.

As I waited, I heard a familiar voice and it was the woman with the coupon from before. "It's that stupid guy you listen to on the radio. If you didn't listen to that garbage, you'd be way better of, I'm telling you, that guy ain't got nothing important to say and you're dumb for listening to him," he said. "I like him and I think he's smart," she said. "OF course you think he's smart.

He just tells you and half of America what to think and then you think it and feel all smart or something. You and the rest of the fools that listen to him ain't smart. If you was, you wouldn't be listening to that guy." "Smarter than you," she mumbled under.