Monday, November 9, 2009

A Sure Thing

I was on the phone with my Wunderfriend Abbey when I said I really needed to get to the store to shop for dinner. The thing about my Safeway is that there are really very few times you can shop without conviction that something weird will happen. And the ABSOLUTE worst time to go is 5:30 pm, when everyone comes home from work and bum-rushes the roasted chicken supply. And then stands in the self-checkout line, which extends into the cereal aisle, which is my single most-frequented aisle.

Anyway, my last words to Abbey were that I was headed to the Safeway to collect blog fodder. It was 5:30 pm.

And I was let down! The store was totally calm, I didn't have to push anyone, the fundraising PA system they always seem to have going there was silent (thank God Breast Cancer Awareness Month is finally over), and while I was in line behind a woman buying four fridge packs of Caffeine-Free Diet Coke (who in this neighborhood has storage for that?), everything was fine, and I started thinking that I RARELY mention to people when my blog radar is up. But there are definitely occasions I go into thinking that something will go wrong, and when it does, it'll be OK, because at least I can bitch about it on my blog.

AND THEN THE ANSWER TO ONE OF LIFE'S GREAT MYSTERIES REVEALED ITSELF.

You know those women with the really long nails? I mean the really long ones...like, they're either fake or curling up weird at the end. Obnoxiously long. You only ever really see them on the street, or on public transportation, and you wonder, "How do these women get through their day?"

The cashier at my Safeway had those nails. They're red. And because of a fear of...something...the cashiers at my Safeway wear latex gloves at all times. Surgical gloves. And this woman's nails were poking through SEVEN OF THE FINGER HOLES.

Why seven? Why, knowing that this will happen to you, would you not start your shift by just poking all of your nails through? Or, better, cutting out tiny holes for your fingertips? This means the pressure had been SLOWING BUILDING UP THROUGHOUT HER SHIFT, until finally, a fingernail POPPED through.

Repeat six times.

People are so weird.

And one of life's great mysteries has been replaced with another. A successful Monday.

2 comments:

  1. Sounds like successful blog fodder shopping.

    The guy who works the cash register at the parking garage I frequent in downtown DC has one long nail. Left index, really long, freaks me out.

    I mean that's for cocaine or something, right?

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  2. I don't understand 1) what the mystery is or 2) what the answer is. Is 1) "why do people ever get fake nails so long that they can't work, and if so, then 2) the answer is so they'll poke holes through latex?
    I don't know.
    However, I did have a terrific lunch at a new place called Khan's Cave - it was Asian Fusion, and I had a bowl of spicy seafood soup, with noodles. Yummmm.

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