A shopping trip

“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise,” said Franklin, Benjamin (In honor of the Olympics, names have been organized the Chinese way. This is, however, not an endorsement of the situations in Tibet or Taiwan or an approval of China's human rights record). Having performed a detailed cost/benefit analysis on the proposition, I can state with authority that health, wealth, and wisdom are not worth it. There are hours of the day when no one ought to be awake. Or, I should say, hours of the night; the day does not start until the sun is fully risen and is so high in the sky that no one can doubt its position.

Who are we to question the habits of the sun?

Alas, this very questioning - a capital offense in the Inca cultures - is what I was cruelly obliged to do one very early morning a few days ago. Sunflower Market had its grand opening. Sunflower Market! Fruits and vegetables! Fish and sushi! Healthfood! What self-respecting starving student could resist (insert snigger mark here)? So I rolled groggily out of bed, stared curiously for a minute at the power plug beneath my window, splashed water in my face (at least I think it was water), and stumbled down the stairs to the car. Yesterday's paper said there was to be a free bag of groceries for each of the first two hundred people at the doors, and I, according to my mom and grandparents, would be one of those people ("You will be one of those people, Chip!"). There was no time, a stern announcement warned, for coffee, breakfast, or even email before we took off down the road ("There is no time, Chip!"). This was a race. The morning air was dark and cool—like batman, but different—and the construction workers were barely starting work. Even the the streetlights seemed sleepy as they cast rays that were barely brighter than the sun. I yawned ("Chip, why are you yawning?"). The grand opening was not until seven. There was no way anyone else could be up this early.

Then we pulled up to the store's parking lot. Apparently, I had no idea how valuable groceries really are. The nearest empty parking space was about a mile from the store's doors. A crowd of hippies, yuppies, druggies, SDFs, urban outdoorsmen, vagrants and college professors extended from the doors to the nearest parking spot. And near the doors a troupe of cheerleaders chanted “Sunflower Market! Sunflower Market!” Mais oui, mais oui!Perhaps this trip wasn't a complete waste after all.

We parked our car and began elbowing our way through. I yawned again. Finally, we reached the entrance. “Is there a line to get in?” A yuppie gazed back at us mournfully. “No. The first two hundred people got here a long time ago.”

Obviously it was time to leave. We'd been beaten. Agincourt was over and we were the French. But the mom and grandparents begged to differ ("Chin up, Chip!"). They milled around happily with the other shoppers, drinking from little paper cups of free coffee, eating the free oranges piled outside and comparing Volvo stories.

Despite the fact that I was already outside, I needed air. I decided to go on a jog. Even exercise is better than certain situations. And it so happened that, after a quarter mile or so, I found something even better than exercise: McDonald’s. McDonald’s sells huge, greasy hunks of Southern-fried chicken in breakfast sandwiches, guaranteed to start your day the heavy, nauseated way. I used a cup of McDonald’s coffee to make the provisions palatable. There was nothing to make the coffee palatable.

There’s something about having chicken for breakfast—an uncouth, startling feeling that can only be compared to choking on a fishbone. Even if you’ve never choked on a fishbone, you can imagine what it feels like. (If you can't imagine, a demonstration can be arranged.) First, you notice that something has gone wrong in your throat. Something has jarred the comfortable, salivated muscles that you just used to savor a bite of food. Then, you realize that something has gone wrong in your stomach. It is in communication with the throat exactly the way married couples aren't, and evidently feels some empathy (same analogy). Finally, you jump in alarm as your stomach and throat combine forces to begin a revolt.

Like most revolutions, this one is motivated more by impulse than reason. If you’ve piled your plate high with fried strips of pork fat or bitten into the mound of melting, oozing sausage, eggs, and cheese that is called the McMuffin, you have done something very disgusting for the morning hour. It is only conventionally disgusting, however. It takes extra nerve and extra tastelessness to eat something that disturbingly disgusting. Or it takes a free coupon, which is what I had. Free chicken sandwiches are of course superior to free groceries.

After quelling the revolt, I returned to the store. Much to my chagrin, the cheerleaders were gone, but so were the crowds of people, and my family was ready to leave with several bags of fresh (though not free) produce. A shopping trip is a shopping trip, after all.

Slowcomotion

My mouth was reeling that fateful Saturday afternoon, as if it had just been hit by a Jim Shields fastball. Taste Buds fled like terrified Orcs from avenging Ents. Nerves split and frayed like the rigging on Old Ironsides during battle. And smoke, I fancied, ascended from my ears the same way it does when Jerry finds himself in an uncomfortable situation and reacts according to the laws of cartoon physics.

I had just finished my first bite of a spicy chicken sandwich. Yes, I can handle spicy stuff, thank you very much. It's not like I'm a wimp. Contrary to popular and familial belief, I can take a challenge. In fact, I would readily devour the world's hottest pepper if I wanted to. But I just don't want to. You see, some things are simply outside my comfort zone. I don't feel like eating spicy food. It burns my tongue. It makes my ears smoke. Yeah, I'm a wimp.

Last Saturday I put my foot down. I decided I didn't have to put up with all that capsasin or let my tongue be fried like a potato sliver. I would buy an ice cream sundae to assuage the fires in my mouth and dispel the rainclouds lurking behind my eyelids. With fresh determination, I sauntered over to the restaurant counter and waited. Then I waited a while longer, and a while longer yet. There was something amiss. I looked around for an employee.

The woman in the kitchen was alive—even I could deduce that much by the steady rise and fall of her chest. But she certainly wasn't kicking. In fact, she was hardly breathing. One of her feet slowly rose from the ground, made a leisurely arc through mid-air, and settled a little way ahead. Then the other foot rose placidly to take its place. I plunked down my elbows and watched the spectacle, forgetting for a moment that my tongue was melting behind my lips.

There was no one else in line. Back at the grill, a frantic Mexifornian shot around like Speedy Gonzalez, making and bagging orders for the drive-thru. At the pay window sat a third employee, more dilatory than the first, who moved with a lethargy reminiscent of cold molasses. She was folding the Mexifornian's bags shut, gradually extending them toward impatient and outstretched hands, and counting out change with the enthusiasm of an aquarium snail. The Slow Poke I had observed first obviously noticed the action at the pay window, because she modified the path of her arduous trail to lend a hand to Molasses. Despite all the wisdom that had been instilled in me over the decades, I stared. It was mesmerizing.

Then my tongue reminded me what I was supposed to be doing, and I shook myself awake. Was there balm in Gilead? I needed relief on the double. Speedy had his hands full. Molasses was stuck to an earphone and speaker. Slow Poke was my only hope. "Um, excuse me" I muttered. She didn't move. Or did she? It was hard to tell. "Excuse me," I spoke up louder. Her head began to turn, followed by her shoulders, her torso, and finally her legs. She ambled over to the register.

I sighed in relief and was just opening my afflicted mouth to order when, in a twist of fate as excruciating as it was unexpected, she began to smile. I tried to stop her. I used English, Latin, Esperanto, and three dialects of sign language to get across to her that I didn't need the smile, that all I needed was a cup of ice cream, that I would pay extra, that I would slip her a few bills under the table. It was no use. The lips moved inexorably onward, upward, seeming as they climbed to shout "excelsior" in their enthusiasm. And yes, there was enthusiasm in that smile. It was a deep, full, cordial smile that evinced every bit of the meticulous effort and precious time employed in its creation.

I winced and summoned patience. As the smile progressed, more customers began to line up behind me. When the lips had waxed into a crescent, the cheeks began to glow. Then the eyelids complacently began to join in. I was desperate. Turning to the crowd behind me, I offered a silent plea. Couldn't someone do something? But I was met by a sea of hypnotically glazed eyes and slack jaws. My mouth was feeling quite OK now, and in answer to a low rumbling in my stomach, I glanced longingly toward my chicken sandwich. Horrors! Speedy was wiping off tables and I realized in a flash that the sandwich was in his path. My chicken sandwich. My spicy delicacy. I broke from the line and ran for it. I leaped over several chairs and shouted a warning, but arrived just as Speedy swept my lunch into a trash can. I staggered up, and a tear brimmed over my eyes unto my cheek. Then I looked at the line. Even had it been moving, there were too many people to wait out.

I would be eating somewhere else today, I concluded as I trudged out to my car. Somewhere where slow motion was merely a cinematic effect.