why, sometimes, the grocery store is awesome

generally speaking, i despise grocery shopping. which is why i have been subsisting mainly on cheeze-its for the past few weeks. i hate taking the time to plan meals, make a list, go to the store and search for everything i need. and, since i almost always skip the first two steps, i usually get to the store with no real idea of what it is that i need in the first place and just wander the aisles aimlessly, tossing things in my basket only to get home and realize i still don't have actual food. plus there are about one trillion things i would, and do, choose over going to the store and by then we're out of toilet paper and shopping has become crisis management and the whole task seems too big and overwhelming and all i can do is run in and get the few things i need the very most and i'm pretty much right back where i started.

but, sometimes grocery shopping is like other things that seem so much cooler and more fun if you come back to them after not having done them for a while. like when you have weeks' worth of celebrity gossip to catch up on, or when you run into an old friend who used to kind of bug you but it's so fun to reconnect because now you hardly get to see each other so all that annoying stuff doesn't matter anymore. the smith's in the avenues was that friend to me last night. here is just a small list of the rad things that happened to me while i was there.

1. i ran into miaken who i had seen, literally, just a few minutes earlier at my office. we should have carpooled. and, she bought a five pound bag of cinnamon bears. you should ask her for some.
2. i ran into katie clifford, who wasn't phased at all that i recognized her in the shampoo and cosmetics aisle even though we have actually never met. she looks just like her sister (and my new friend), emily, so i played that card and decided to leave out that i may or may not sometimes stalk her on facebook and/or her blog. she was lovely and friendly and i hope we can be friends, even if she reads this and gets a little scared for a minute.
3. there was a guy in front of me by the cheese wearing a t-shirt that said, "not the kind of grass you take home to mama."
4. when i got over to the eggs, i remembered this dream i had a few nights ago that i really, really needed an egg, like for something really important, and when i opened the eggs in our fridge, they weren't eggs at all but just empty shells. and the few that were eggs were so fragile that they cracked all over as soon as you put a finger on them. weird. the eggs i bought appear to be fine.
5. newman's own pasta sauce was on sale.
6. when the cashier asked the woman behind me how she was doing the woman replied, "not so great. i think i have the tomato salmonella."
7. i ate a creamsicle in the car on my way home.
8. i didn't forget one single thing. not one. i even remembered the toilet paper.