all alone in a supermarket

So, it’s after work, I’m in the produce aisle of my supermarket. There are lots of people, you might say, it’s crowded. That would be one word for it. Another is packed like lemmings, to quote Sting, who once taught English so he really knows his way around a dictionary. But we’re not in shiny metal boxes, which is kind of ironic since Sting wound up selling one of his songs to Jaguar.

No, we’re pushing carts around. Ow. Someone’s cart rams into me and pinches my finger. That hurts. I immediately pick up a bag of frozen berries to make it feel better. I bought them before I reached the produce aisle. I do that sometimes, hit the frozen section before I get produce. It doesn't make sense, well, because frozen things melt, you know what I mean.

It’s funny because my mother and father met in a supermarket when he accidentally on purpose rammed her cart and pinched her fingers. They laugh now when they tell the story of how swollen her fingers got after that.

But in the supermarket I go to where all the vegetables are, because I love vegetables. Well, honestly, I don’t much care for string beans or kale or chard, but orange peppers and carrots and cucumbers, I just love those.

Suddenly I’m having a real problem, because there are four different cucumber choices. Oh no! I guess in the U.S. of America we have so many choices it sometimes is downright confounding. Do I get the kirby or the persians or the regulars or those really long ones that come wrapped in plastic and I think they might be hydroponic but that makes me think of pot and heat lamps and can vegetables be hydroponically grown or only herb?

The thing about kirbys is they’ve got a lot of crunch, and crunch is something I really treasure. But if you get more than one, and the one you don’t eat sits in your fridge for a while, even a day, its skin hardens and its consistency changes. Persians are good, they have crunch too but I don’t always find them flavorful. The regulars are a standby or a staple, either one really, but I have found from time to time that the seeds are just too meaty and the meatier they are, the less distinct. The pot-like cukes simply rot fast. I mean I’m only one person—I can’t eat a whole foot long cuke in one sitting. Can you?

So suddenly I think, maybe all these kinds of cucumbers are having a conversation. It goes something like this:

"Pick me," the Kirby chortles, because that’s what a Kirby would do, it would chortle. "Pick me because I’m so versatile. Sometimes people pickle me."

"No, me," says the Persian."I’m exotic. I come all the way from Persia, which is far away from where you live."

"I’m the one you want," says plastic-cuke, "I’m so exquisite, I must be shrinkwrapped and it makes me pristine." At first I think the cuke says, "it makes me Christine," but then I realize I mishear. What a hoot! Sometimes that happens when I don't clean my ears out so well.

And the regular says, "I’m the choicest since I represent the average guy. I’m the cuke that Springsteen would heroize if he heroized cukes and not working stiffs."

By the time I imagine all these conversations, why, I’m laughing and laughing. And then laughing some more. And everyone in the produce aisle stops to stare. But then, they start laughing too. And the clerks behind the cash registers laugh and the manager with the do-rag, well even he laughs, though he lives in a hippie town, and his living in a hippie town doesn't mean he can't laugh, but his do-rag seems not to quite match the fact of where he lives. Anyway, they all laugh. Not at me, but with me. And soon, I buy my food, and walk out and I never know if they keep on laughing.