Whole Foods

I was pulled into an environment of over exposure.  Tiny cities scraping the ceilings of the grocery store.  Whole Foods to be exact.  Columbus Circle to be more specific.  A watering hole for tourists students and working individuals.  I was coming from a nice day at the beach, not too much sun-burn but just enough to leave its mark.

The crippling factor was my sinuses.  They started acting up soon as I grabbed the two-tiered shopping cart.  It made my senses cloudy and I was sneezing into my shirt so loud a worker yelled a hearty "bless you!" as he walked by.

I dragged my feet to the fruit aisle and wasn't interested.  I went by the seafood aisle and spotted some oysters.  Someone I know was on an oyster kick and I thought maybe I should make my own.  I scanned the seafood section in an attempt to alter my diet and caught a disgruntled fish man and old woman talking about a certain piece of fish.  The elder woman was asking him a clear question but he didn't respond.  Her response was then garbled and ended up as "Yes, I'll just take it!" but then he acted surprised and somehow the transaction was delayed, fish in hand.  The woman kept asking him more questions while leaning over the frozen fillets and I was too overwhelmed by this situation to linger.

Snacks, I wanted to grab some snacks.  I started walking through the aisle and paused.  Not knowing I blocked an entire line of shoppers, I looked at them blankly and then moved aside.  A few "thank yous" came my way and I nodded in lieu of my wonderful feat.  I resumed my position of staring.  I don't remember what I was staring at but I didn't buy anything from that section.  I think it was overpriced tea.  I did end up buying "afternoon pickup" because I was looking for a non-coffee pickup for afternoons in the office to help cope with my detest of staring at an unnatural computer square.

It was not cocaine.

I turned the corner and sneezed again, my recovery was languid and I had to walk a few more steps to recover the energy spent.  My eyes felt sick, acting like a live broadcast camera of the war waging inside me.  I grabbed a few seaweed snacks hiding behind the absurd flavors on the shelf.

The only clear instruction my brain could make was lip balm.  It was my one anchor to reality.  I needed lip balm because recently, when I have been waking up, a nice seam opens up in the middle of my lip.  I wobbled to other end of the store passing, bread, salad, people, prepared dishes, and peered into the small restaurant hidden behind a wall of beer.  I started staring again, and other shoppers would pass by and also stare to try and decipher what I was looking at.  I was trying to find ramen but I saw no one eating ramen.  I saw a picture of a sad looking bowl of ramen blown up to make the sadness even more overbearing.

The Body Aisle.  Finally, I could own a moisturized lip.  I got sidetracked to the essential oils.  There was a roll-on so I had to test out this roll-on feature.  It did what it said and I smelled like a wooden hotbox filled with white-haired men in white towels.  Another oil had great marketing, with a pamphlet the size of a postcard attached to the little vial.  It said it would make me feel better, so naturally, I tried a few drops but too much came out.  My hand was soaked in a blend of well-known essential oils.  I put some by my nose to help with sinuses and I started to cry.  For the remainder, I wiped my hand on all the absorbent objects around me.  I moved on to the lip balm section still crying with my eyes half closed because it kind of burned.

I was allergic to all the lip balm in that aisle. I realized that I'm in a natural food store and natural lip balms make it look like I made-out with a beehive.  Oh and beeswax is ironically one of the ingredients I cannot put on my lips.  Along with lanolin, because sheep are fluffy assholes.

I proceeded to the checkout.  After the cashier scanned all the items I asked him to remove an item due to its inflated price.  I never knew what Almond Butter tasted like.  I'd like to think it's just like almonds, though.  The man behind the register asked around for a "key" in response.  He asked around but no one seemed to answer.  I had imagined a physical key was needed and found it kind of arbitrary.  I whip out my card and wait.  I wait some more.  A lady asks if she can get through and I stepped aside.  Then I kept waiting wondering what is taking so long.  The man asks, "did you swipe?"  Oh, apparently he got the key (password) soon after he asked for it and was waiting for me.