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Naturally Harvested Hell

So the headache finally subsided late yesterday afternoon after consuming a gazillion doses of pain relievers. My neck is still stiff, but I've got some Advil kickin' to try and keep it from blowing up at me again. Needless to say, I wasn't much in the mood for cooking last night, and I also wasn't quite up to going out for dinner. Sushi sounded good, and the nearby natural foods market actually makes very good sushi. So I called Ryan and told him that's what he'd be eating for dinner, and proceeded to the market. I selected a few rolls and a pre-packed selection of tuna, salmon and sweet shrimp then strolled over to the vegetable area to get the fixins for a salad. Only natural foods people eat a shit ton of lettuce, so the only remaining lettuce in the place was naturally harvested field greens by the pound, and I HATE field greens. And seriously what the hell do they mean by "naturally harvested" and why does naturally harvesting something mean you can charge $8.99 a pound for it? At $8.99 a pound, you better be wrapping up a fine cut of red meat or some crab legs. Sheesh!

I proceeded to the checkout counter without salad fixins because I wasn't about to pay that much for some damn leafy greens. When I'd first walked into the store, that idiotic song by Paul McCartney was playing... that "Siii-mply Haaa-a-aving a WUNderful Christmas time" piece of shit song. By the time I reached the register, it had just ended. Having worked in retail, that song grates on my nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. I always knew when it was coming up because the store I worked at had pre-taped holiday music that ran throughout the day. About the time that The Waitresses finished "Christmas Wrapping" I knew it was only a few short seconds away from the hell that is the Paul McCartney Christmas jingle. My shoulders would tense up, my left eye start twitching, I'd become short with customers and would refuse to hang the plaid wrap skirts with side buckle embellishment in size order as directed by the employee manual. Grrrrr...

I found out last night, that I was not the only person in the world of retail to react that way to that particular song. As she was swiping a carton of soy milk for the customer in front of me, the checkout lady declared, "Oh, that song really gets on my nerves!" The customer chuckled. The checkout lady went on, "Every time I hear it, I just get so mad - and they've been playing that song for WEEKS now!" I chimed in, "I know what you mean. They used to play it at the store I worked at." The checkout lady then formed a fake Uzi out of the bag of naturally harvested squash and said, "It makes me all most snap!" as she sprayed cop killer bullets across the checkout lanes from her naturally harvested squash. We all chuckled nervously.

She finished with the customer in front of me and proceeded to start scanning my sushi. She was still in the mood for talking, so she informed me that a local food critic had recently rated their sushi one of the tops in the city. I replied that I had always like the sushi here. She went on to add, "Well, I don't eat anything that lives in water or on the land. Especially in the water though because of all of the toxins and chemicals that people put in there. I just can't imagine put something so unnatural in my body."

My face registered the appropriate response to this unwanted information and I think I actually "heh'd" in disapproval. At that, she finally stepped down off of her soap box long enough for me to say, "wow, you really know how to sell someone the meal they are going to eat in just a few minutes." The man behind me holding his cup of wheat barley broth with fennel and chick peas "heh'd" even louder. The checkout lady backed up her comments with something like, "you are getting nutrients, vitamins and other things I can't get from my diet."

People, had I not just watched the Trading Spouses with the vegan bitch on it just a few days before, I might've gone off on this person. I appreciate a person having strong beliefs in how they conduct their lives, but come on. I almost wanted to say, "you just reminded me - I forgot to pick up my order from the meat counter. Can you add in 10 pounds of ground beef, 2 live lobsters, 2 chicken breasts and a cow's tongue, please?" Sigh.

For the record, the raw fish flesh was damn good. Really damn good. And what the hell does a person who doesn't eat something that "lives in the water or on land" eat? Are birds that never touch the ground okay? How about sloths? I heard many a sloth will never touch the ground in their entire lives, preferring to hang out in the canopy of the rainforest all the days of their lives. And define living? Because when I left for Hawaii, I had a bowl of cyclamen and bear grass growing on my front porch, but when I returned, it was most certainly dead. Bleh.

10:22 a.m. - December 03, 2004

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