shopping: just a few things
Wednesdays are telework days for me and they are often super-productive. I can get a lot more work done without interference from co-workers and clients and I can get the odd chore done at home without much time lost to work. Laundry, dishes, a little swiffer action, all easy to do while responding to e-mail or performing massive search/replace operations on files with extremely horrible and outdated coding. But yesterday, in the midst of doing dishes, I realized I’d need to do the one errand I actually sort of dread doing on telework days: go to the store in the middle of the day.
Normally you’d think this was optimal, and in many places I’m sure it is. But in Columbia Heights, there are always people home, all day long. I normally try to get any shopping done at 6am or thereabouts, but once it approaches noon, it’s only if I have to. I was out of dishwasher detergent, see… and unfortunately, there wasn’t much of anything else I was out of. But of course, one can’t go to the store for just one thing unless it’s like a party emergency situation. So I wandered around the living room, kitchen and bathroom thinking “Ok, just a few things, surely I need something else.” But, as I’m sure many of us do, I still tried to stop short of needing so many things that I needed to make a list. Not that I mind making lists, but the point was a quick shopping trip.
And as you might expect, I proceeded to be immediately distracted. I ended up buying coffee creamer, ibuprofen, and pomegranate juice before I remembered to get the dishwasher detergent lest I forget it completely. I thought to myself how the above bottles of Life Juice sounded like a healing plot device in a bad 70s sci-fi movie and kept going.1
After picking up some nuts, I had just a casual stroll through the fasteners and hooks section…2
Is it just me, or do these Marvel Heroes LED lights look like they could double for sex toys? Hulk, Iron Man and Spider-Man or Fist, Spanker and Shocker? I’m just sayin’!
I escaped Target unscathed, after standing in what always seems to be the longest check out line in existence, only made longer by the cashier asking every customer if they’d like to save money “by applying for a Target card today?” and then even longer by the ones who say “Sure!” I realize self-checkout is often an invitation to theft, but sometimes I still wish I could just ring up my 5 or 6 items by myself and split.
But at least I got my detergent… among just a few other things. 
1 After looking them up, I realize they’re raw juice and probably good if one is going on a juice cleanse and doesn’t want to buy a juicer–which are a pain to clean.
2 Because I’m hooked on them. See what I did there?
I like how the clerk phrases the question so that you sound like a doofus for “not wanting to save money”. I told one especially persistent one that if you really get down to it a Target card will actually cost me more so she should just shut up about it.