Thursday, January 11, 2024

A visit to the supermarket

 


My supermarket, I know it well.  I always get to walk past the employee parking on my way to the main door.  I like to know who is working.  My supermarket has familiar faces!  I like to show up around an hour before shift change.  Everyone is tired at the end of shift, kinda sleepy.  Off guard.  Thinking about getting home in one piece.  

Shopping cart.  I do not trust anyone not pushing a shopping cart in the supermarket.  They are not shopping.  What are they?  Shoplifting gang?  Pickpocket?  Fruit fetish sex fiend?  I always use a shopping cart.  My supermarket, it has the shopping carts that you don't have to put a coin in to get. There are orange ones, and yellow ones.  I like the yellow ones.  They are just the right size for my shopping experience.  

Dry cleaner.  There is a dry cleaner on the way into the store.  I know the staff by sight, but I never talk to them.  I just make sure it is one of them.  Shoplifting gangs like to bonk them and replace them with a gang member, as look out.  You should always be suspicious of people in masks.  If I saw a masked person behind the dry cleaning desk, I would be afraid.  But not today!  I just rolled my yellow shopping cart along.

Security guard.  They have one today.  He never moves outside the security tape marked square on the ground.  Must be one of those new fangled energy fields, like in Star Trek.  I know this guy.  He actually works for the store.  The Shoplifting Gang likes to put in their own guy when they are taking repatriations for colonialism.  That security guy for the gang, he always wears a mask.  And if the security guy is a weenie in baggy drapes with the starchy underwear scratch, that means the dry cleaner is bonked, and another one, of the shoplifters, is there, masked, amongst the bedbugs.  Dry cleaners.  I doubt the shoplifter dipped their socks in pyrethrum.  The bedbugs would be crawling up her legs to her privates.  Bedbugs are slow climbers though, when they are feeding and laying their eggs.  I felt like Doctor Phibes. 

Cakes and cookies.  I have shopped here a year and the bottom cake shelf has never changed.  Always the same fancy cakes.  They never move.  I never see that electric baby blue except on my computer screen.  Same place it has been for the last year, at least.  Above that are things that change.  Yummy cupcakes!  Cookie cakie with sprinkles!  I actually saw someone buy some one day.  Their display inventory must be aged at least several months to up to over a year.  Maybe the bright colors come from organic fungicide dyes.  

Shoplifters corner.  There are lights missing in the display beside the empty order desk.  They have cameras there.  The staff do not actually watch the cameras.  I know that too.  If the (one) staff responds to something, they do not have radio contact with the floating security guard.  

Customer service.  At the back, there is an employee entrance.  Goes to the cold warehouse part.  I wait outside their fancy swing doors.  "Employees only", says the sign.  I just have to wait close, yet a bit back. Halberd distance.  And wait.  Like an alligator in a quiet pond.  

To scalping the employer health and safety representative.   I looked for his eyes when he came through the doors, innocent and full of cheer.  He paled and stopped dead on his feet.  He face curdled and his bowels lose.   He turned and collided with the swingy door with a wet crunch.  With a broken nose, and a shoe filled with shit, he heads to the company first aid resource point.  

I lurk in a close by aisle.  The floating manager waddles by.  Nobody mans the watchtower now.  It does not matter.  The aisle is blocked by a ghastly cart.  A professional shopper.  I walked up to them from behind.  They never looked around.  Mmmmm.  

Paperwork.  The hobbit picking between the jars of mustard had a list.  Things to get, of course.  On the list.  Address to take it to.  Cielo Drive.  Not far away.  Name to ask for.  Phone number to call to find out how many people were there.  And that explains the delivery van parked in the employee parking area.  I clenched my fists.  Lots of names.  Something to take home to talk about at family dinner.  

The command post. Duck commander was off showing kindness in an emergency and the command post was unlocked, actually the door ajar, held open with a winter boot.  Our agent inside the supermarket had told me that It kept the command codes in a leather notebook with the title Boss Woman.  On the first page.  This was no Notebook of Evil.  I took a picture of the command codes with my ever helpful and convenient cell phone.  

Cell phones are wonderful.  Within seconds my photography was sent to a conveniently located undocumented banking center.   

I bought roast beef, potatoes, onions, carrots, peas, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and, turnip.  Dinner. Susan and Tex would be there.  They were looking for some pick up work. 

I, Fenris Badwulf, wrote this.  I care.  

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