Page 3 of Check Me Out

Clearly, he was someone I needed to know better.

Leaving Barry stammering away while Colleen stared at him with her bland shark eyes, I peeled off from our conversation and launched myself on an intercept course with the guy. He drifted toward the baking aisle in a daze. Although he wasn’t going particularly fast, I couldn’t catch up with him without obviously running. But if I slipped down the adjacent aisle and rounded the endcap display just so, I’d be in just the right spot to accost him with Val-U-Mart’s cheesy requisite greeting:Welcome to Val-U-Mart, where “U” come first.

I took the corner with a sharp turn, plastering on the cocky-yet-self-deprecating grin that’s always served me so well, and prepared to deliver the opening volley with just the right blend of confidence and camp—

—only to find the baking aisle completely deserted.

What the heck?

My guy must’ve backtracked to the produce section. I jogged one more aisle over, but there was no one there except a little old lady brutally manhandling the plums. Huh. Maybe the guy had gone the opposite way, toward the greeting cards. That might provide some good fodder for flirtation, all those hackneyed lines, delivered with just the hint of an eye-roll….

“Young man?”

Damn it. In my eagerness to meet my guy, I’d gone and let myself fall on the plum-squeezer’s radar.

“Young man—did you know your romaine is wilted? And another thing, why are your bananas so green?”

“Fabulous question! I’m sure Customer Service would beeverso grateful if you stopped by and filled out a comment card.”

I made tracks toward Seafood before she could point out the pointiness of the pineapples or the squishiness of the squash, only to see a frazzled, half-asleep woman in a tracksuit and fuzzy slippers grabbing a can of Pringles from a pyramid display…from the bottom row. With no time to spare, I startled her with a jaunty, “Welcome to Val-U-Mart!” and prodded the cardboard cylinder back into place. As the whole display swayed, I grabbed a can from the top and lobbed it into her now-empty hands. I’d barely broken stride. She blinked vaguely as I whisked past her and headed toward aisle 3….

And found myself face to face with Management.

I backpedaled hard, and even so, I nearly sent the guy sprawling. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the register….” He scowled at my name tag. “Angus?”

“That’s exactly where I was headed,” I said with a sigh, now wishing I’d let the damn chips fall where they may.

4

Newton

Nowadays, a dollar won’t take you very far at the grocery store—or, for that matter, anywhere else. Anything I could afford was either too small, too insubstantial, or just too strange to make a meal on its own. After all, there’s only so much instant mashed potato a guy can take.

I knew I should just grab a bottle of hot sauce and resign myself to another week of lentils, but even the hot sauce was out of my price range. Ramen, too, was nowhere near the bargain it had been a few years ago—though that was probably for the best. In undergrad, I’d eaten enough cheap ramen for a lifetime.

I was just about to admit defeat and head home with a yogurt or a can of mixed veg when a flash of orange caught my eye.

The clearance shelf!

I always love a bargain—what self-respecting math nerd doesn’t?—but today’s need went far beyond the dopamine hit I’d get from being thrifty. And where the utter randomness of the things I typically needed to sort through was usually amusing, I took no pleasure in it now. Sunscreen. Baby aspirin. Dented cans of oysters. Each discovery was worse than the last.

It seemed that even the clearance rack couldn’t save me.

But as I turned back toward the “ethnic” aisle to face the ramen, I spied a can behind a phalanx of dinosaur-shaped fruit gummies that I didn’t recognize. The can bore a subtly patterned label in shades of blue, purple and green. I delved in and coaxed it toward the front. It was heavy, with no dents, dings or rust. And as I spun it around to see what it actually contained, I found only a single word.

Happiness.

I kept turning, figuring that eventually, I’d come to an ingredient list. But other than the swirly, undulating design, there was nothing but that one word,Happiness, and a barcode covered by a contrasting orange markdown sticker.

Curious, I picked up the can. It was substantial. I gave it a shake, expecting a slosh, or maybe a rattle, to offer some clue as to what might be in it. But despite the weight of the thing, there was no movement inside. It felt solid, which only puzzled me more.

I tried to imagine what might take up all the space without any room for gurgle or slide, but the only thing I came up with was cranberry sauce—the type that slides right out shaped exactly like its container, right down to the ridges. But the label seemed too exotic for something as mundane as that. Maybe there was something foreign inside, some delicacy from an exotic locale—a place that didn’t regulate ingredient lists. Which meant it could be full of seaweed and squid and chilis hot enough to burn off your face.

Or maybe it was something entirely inedible, like dog food.

Or even shortening.

The responsible thing to do would be to grab whatever ramen I could afford and look into upgrading my meal plan. But as I raised the can to put it back on the clearance shelf, the ornate lettering tickled my imagination—Happiness—and I asked myself whether or not the ramen plan would actually make me happy.

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