The hero’s journey takes on many forms, as Joseph Campbell can attest. I went to the grocery store on Saturday. This is the worst possible day to go. Going to these stores on Saturday should be forbidden, like visiting Altair IV. Yet it was the only day that Shawna and I could go together, a necessity in our household. If either one of us go alone, the other person is bound to be disappointed at the selections (or lack thereof) made in the other’s absence. She has a propensity towards under-shopping, while I always come home laden with vestigial treasures of no relevant value.
Going to get groceries is a traumatic experience for me. It is a tragic journey, fraught with peril and suffering, whose end is always lamentable. One major reason is because we go to Wal-Mart. This behemoth, formed out of capitalistic wet dreams, bestrides our narrow world like a colossus. I feel that even ancient Vikings transported to the future to gaze upon the tactics and effects of this company, would ask them, Why so much raping and pillaging? It goes against everything I claim to believe in. So it follows that, as a Socialistic champion of the proletariat, I find the very idea of supporting that chain heinous. But as a lazy (and poor) idealist, Wal-Mart seems to be a good option for our grocery needs. I see myself giving an intimate nod to Uncle Fidel, who knows that revolutionists almost always depart from their ideals once the war is won.
Entering the store makes me feel like a class traitor. I come from a line of working class manual labors. Sure, being a librarian and freelance writer may not carry as much weight down at the docks as a construction worker, but it’s the thought that counts. Once inside, the crowds induce claustrophobia, transforming me from Michael Collins into a snobby social commentator. I remark that Wal-Mart forms the nexus of postmodern pilgrimages, where the faithful come to bow and pay homage to a force beyond their control. I stand like Jesus at the temple, telling Shawna that the poor woman buying a carton of cigarettes with her month’s income has given more than the aristocratic cougar with her cart full of expensive energy snacks. Inevitably, it comes to pass that my wry social witticisms contribute little to our progress, so I leave my lofty perch and move on. I resign myself to the fact that Wal-Mart brings out the worst in me, and that I am no better than a Nazi sympathizer in 1940’s Poland.
Our expedition begins in the non-food half of the store, which is separated from the grocery section by a Berlin Wall of cheap clothing. First stop is the “health and beauty” section. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and Wal-Mart is the god of commerce. This used to be one of my favorite sections when I had long hair. For a few years I was under the delusion that growing my hair out and sporting a long beard would disguise the fact that I was incredibly fat. On the contrary, all this did was to produce an inexplicable upsurge in Ozark Sasquatch sightings. But in happy oblivion I would pour over shampoos and conditioners with a critical eye, to ensure that my “man-mane” was treated to the best. Now that I’ve lost weight and cut my hair, the sojourn in this department only hastens my inevitable debilitating boredom. Yet even though I become extremely bored and agitated while Shawna is looking at those wares, I like to think that I am a good husband to buy shower supplies for. I object to bar soap on personal grounds, and prefer the body wash alternative. I do not need a separate AXE “douche -bag” shower gel, because I rather like the smell of my wife’s Japanese Cherry Blossom. So, at this point, I am a traitorous, snobby, claustrophobic metro-sexual who is rapidly losing interest in this outing. We must hurry if I am to make it out alive.
Soon I am lifting a preposterously large bag of dog food into the cart. This fills me with trepidation. We have four dogs, yet live inside the city limits. Our menagerie also includes a cat, Guinea Pig, parakeet, and the ghosts of several generations of fish. The only thing more absurd than housing such a variety of creatures is purchasing food for them. Ingenious marketers ensnare countless multitudes by selling pet food as if it was for the humans. I have observed the sanitary habits of my dogs, and can vouch for the fact that their taste is not discriminatory. Savory steak and Alaskan salmon bear no higher regard than their own feces. Yet, if you advertise, they will come. And we do. The food is expensive, with portions than could only develop by projecting America’s ravenous tastes onto it’s pets. The enormous bag stuffed onto the lower rack of our cart presents a problem at the check out. It is too big to place atop the conveyor belt. It is too awkward to carry. One must wheel the cart around so that the checker can scan it. But you can’t do it until after the cart is empty, so the timing is difficult. The robotic process of scanning and bagging each item must be interrupted to accommodate one purchase. And I hate making the checker’s dreary job any worse.
From there Shawna urgently distracts me away from the guns and shooting accoutrement to go look at the home furnishings. She always asks me to stay with her, and I always decline. I need some release from the pressure of gazing upon things that I don’t care about. I tell her I’ll be right back, and then venture into the toy section. As I scan the isles for the latest toys I am filled with conflicting emotions. First I have a bittersweet nostalgia for the lost days of my youth. Looking at the plastic manifestations of heroes that he’d worshiped through the television set would inspire joy in young Brian, and produce a great fear that his parents would not buy them for him. In addition to the nostalgia, I also reverberate with another emotion. Like an old man, I become angered by the cheap quality and undecipherable subject matter of modern toys. Where the hell are the He-Man toys? I am lost in a reverie until a child wanders into the isle. This is a game-changer. Children frighten me. In a post Dateline world, it is not safe to be alone with a stranger’s child, even if you are harmless. I don’t know how to respond to them, or how much interaction is acceptable. Great difficulty is found in trying to communicate with those who can’t appreciate my wit and historical references. In addition to that, children are usually unsanitary, and I don’t want to run the risk of being touched by grubby fingers or catching pink eye. As a childless adult, I find being alone in the toy department to be problematic at best. If Shawna is with me, I talk loudly about getting a toy for our “son’s” birthday, to give me an excuse to be there. She never plays along, so my time is limited. In the end, it is far safer to visit the electronics department.
I love this section. Being a pop culture junkie, I enjoy sifting through the various electronic productions. I avoid all of the latest gadgets though. I have the same relationship to technology that Congressmen have to prostitutes; they are only means to an end, and I don’t want to know anything about them. The audio-visual section is where I feel most at home. There are old movies that have been haphazardly resurrected into DVD format just to sell at a humiliatingly low price. Along with these are “straight-to-video” gems like Anacondas 3, starring David Hasselhoff. I stay away from the CDs however, because of the fact that Wal-Mart commands them to be censored. I am a strong proponent of free speech, and like my gangsta’ rap with all the F-Bombs and racial epithets intact. So I usually grab a cheapie movie, a new release, and maybe a television show, then head back to reunite with Shawna. I find her with candles, curtains, and other material manifestations of my boredom. When she sees how many movies I’ve got, she asks me nicely to put some of them back. This is a gamble I always take, on the off-chance that she will let me keep them all. It’s better to start high, and then negotiate down. After the formal diplomacy is concluded we are ready to cross Checkpoint Charlie, and enter into the wasteland known as the grocery section. It might as well be the Thunderdome, as Master Blaster wouldn’t draw any more attention here than the other shoppers.
I enjoy getting groceries. It is always nice to fill the cupboards with new things. But there are always so many people vying for space that I become filled with fear and rage like a newly captive astronaut on a planet full of militant monkeys. Take your filthy paws off me, you damn dirty ape, my mind screams when the natives get too close. People are shoving past me in desperate bids to get their particular item before they are sold out. Children are hanging off carts precariously and screaming like demons. Morbidly obese people like my former self, who can barely muster the effort to breathe are loading up on sugar and MSG. And those of that set who aren’t quite so upwardly mobile weave their motorized carts through the isles with a sweaty anger. The perpetually confused elderly have no problem standing in one particular spot for an indefinite amount of time, as if waiting for the Grim Reaper to come to them, so they can save on gas money. Average people look embarrassed and nervously go about their business with their heads down, as if they were shopping in a house of pornography.
I look around and observe my fellow man, paying very little attention to what I am doing. For some reason we always make a list, only to subsequently forsake it in the heat of the moment. A weird compulsion to get things in pairs overpowers me, like I am preparing for a culinary Noah’s ark. Oh yes, I explain to Shawna, we will need two bottles of mustard to sustain us when the floodgates open. Filled with hypocrisy, I condemn Shawna for parking the cart in someone’s way, while later I block the isle as I am lost in contemplation over the preferred spelling of “ketchup.” Cat Soup, I muse, what an abomination.
The whole process is stressful enough without the biggest fear I have when I am in the grocery store: contact with people that I both know and dislike. There are certain people whom I separate myself from intentionally. Just because I know these people doesn’t mean I want to see them. It’s not that I am embarrassed for them to spot me; it’s that I hate having to talk to them without prep time. I can’t make a game plan; there is no escape, no choice of whom you will see. Then I’ve got to be disingenuous and waste time asking and answering questions that neither of us cares about. Oh, you got a new car? Let me guess, it’s better than mine. How lovely. But it somehow makes people feel significant in the grand scheme of things to see acquaintances and ask them “how are you doing?” I don’t care how they are doing. By the time we get three isles under our belt I am ready to go home, and have no time for social nuance. Turning them over to my wife, I abandon the cart and go on blitzkrieg raids to get the rest of what we need and rush said items back to the cart. I don’t know why we are so afraid to leave our carts unattended. Why on earth would someone steal groceries from your cart while surrounded by the exact same groceries on the shelf? What motive could they possibly have? Are there anarchists who have nothing better to do than to upset the status quo by removing items from stranger’s carts?
When we are finished, and thoughts of hearth and home bring tears to my eyes, we must face the checkout lanes. I promise to make a sacrifice to Vesta, if she will get me home before dark. At a typical Wal-Mart Supercenter there are at least 150 checkout lanes, five of which are open. The “20 items or less” lanes are filled with con artists whom I believe could be carrying upwards of thirty items. Unfortunately, I can’t prove it without making a scene. So I prefer the tobacco isle, which is mostly business. I always wonder audibly how much I could get teenagers to pay me for a pack of cigarettes, and then am rightly chastised.
The awkward contact with checkers is regrettable. There are times in my life when I am forced to come into close proximity with strangers offering me a service which force me to make idle talk. Usually some sort of pain is involved. Be it the dentist, the barber, the tattooist, or the grocery clerk, it is extremely difficult for one to think of something to say to make the situation more comfortable. They are obviously unhappy, but are being watched by a smiley faced Big Brother, which forces them to engage in mundane dialogue as if we are old friends. “Did you find everything all right?” they ask, as if there was anything that could be done about it at this point. I like to upset the balance of the normal inane conversation, so I will say something like, “Who is your favorite Traveling Wilbury? I bet it’s not Jeff Lyne, is it? Nobody likes him.” Like the 15th century Dutch workers throwing their sabots into the machinery, I can minutely sabotage the status quo with my erratic questions and non sequitur ramblings. This makes me feel less awkward, and injects a little benevolent chaos into the poor laborer’s day.
When the transaction is over, for good or ill, we leave the store laden with perishable treasures and eternal preservatives. But the arduous journey across the parking lot brings fresh opportunity for seething anger. As I take my empty cart to the designated receptacle, I dodge discarded ones strewn across acres of pavement by lazy bastards devoid of souls. I don’t understand this. If these people had enough items that they needed a cart, then they have walked miles through the store pushing it’s heavy burden. Now that the cart is empty, they can’t walk a few extra feet to dispose of it properly. Normally I am against the death penalty, but there are a few cases when I become a Texan. Talking during movies at the theatre and leaving one’s cart haphazardly rolling through the parking lot are offenses worthy of death in my estimation. Murder is regrettable, but what kind of sick twisted person leaves their cart out in the open where it can do damage to the vehicles of innocent bystanders?
As I drive home I think about my quest. I wonder which wandering loner of ages past I could compare myself to. Am I like Caine in Kung Fu, or Dr. Banner in The Incredible Hulk? Maybe I have been fated to become a latter day Odysseus, endlessly wandering from peril to peril, and never finding my way home. Or perhaps I’m Frodo, involved in a great quest beyond my control. When Odysseus finally did get home, he had to battle all those suitors and the haters who had given him up for dead. When Frodo returned to the Shire he had to battle small-time thugs and a disgraced wizard. And when I get home I have to face my own final battle: putting up the groceries. These revelations stir deep emotions within my soul, and I am on the verge of an epiphany when Shawna alerts me to the fact that I am driving on the wrong side of the road.
Sing in me, O Muse, of that man of twists and turns: driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Wal-Mart…
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