Safeway Musings

As I so often do after going to the gym, I stopped by my local Safeway for some foodstuffs. I had a few thoughts during the expedition:

Hot Sauce? Hot Damn!

I grew up eating a particular kind of hot sauce. La Victoria Salsa Brava.

Is it authentic? No. Is it particularly spicy? No. Is it anything other than familiarly tasty? No.

The problem has been that for a couple of years now, I have been unable to get it in "Hot" flavor. Mild? Yes. Medium? Sure? Hot? No.

Until today. I was stocking up on the Medium when I saw they had Hot and it was on sale. I bought three bottles (enough to last a couple of months, at least) and I smiled more broadly than any condiment should cause me to.

Don't You Tell Me How to Live My Life

Whenever we check out at the grocery store, we can (a) provide our own bag, (b) use paper, or (c) use plastic.

I wouldn't be opposed to option (a) except my self-awareness indicates that I would bring my cloth bags from my car (with groceries) and then they'd sit there, rather than be brought back to my car... rendering them useless the next time I went to the grocery store.

I should, arguably, opt for option (b) since my father worked for many years in the now near-defunct timber and paper industry in Oregon (OK... I don't know if it's nearly defunct or not, but it's dead to me). Of course, my dad used to be part of a union, too, and heaven knows how I feel about organized labor.

The tie-breaker is that my cats use the kitty box. A lot. They use the kitty box quite a lot. And I need to clean it to have any chance to ever EVER have a visitor to my apartment come back (trust me; I had one woman abandon a pair of shoes and her pants at my place, rather than ever return, due to my cats (man... that sounds kinda bad when I tell the story like that)).

So, in spite of the massive plastic bag pollution that is a terrible thing, I get plastic bags so I can use them to dispose of my used kitty litter. I don't feel great about it, but I do it.

What I do NOT need is, as the checkout guy is restocking the plastic bags so he can put my La Victoria Salsa Brava (Hot) and other goodies away, is for him to say, "Let me get more of the evil bags."

Fuck you.

That's like a cop rolling his eyes as he recites the Miranda rights or a prostitute being glum over getting out a condom. None of these things make me happy, but they're necessary. Stop giving me grief.

A Poisonous Idea

Last week a 14 year-old robber shot and killed someone. Bad? Sure. No 14 year-old should be robbing, let alone killing. I gotta think, though, that it's not THAT uncommon... the reason I read about it is because she killed her victim after being made fun of for being so young.

Can you imagine that? Being robbed by a tween is sort of embarrassing, and a bummer, also. But being killed by one due to one's inability to stifle mockery? That totally sucks.

So imagine when I saw someone that looked like Bret Michaels today as I unloaded my groceries. I so wanted to tell her she did a great job hosting the Miss Universe pageant.

Yes, it was a her.

And, yes, Bret Michaels has had phases where he looked like a chick, but this chick looked like Bret Michaels when he looked like a dude.

I can't say I really thought of the victim of the 14 year-old robber when I bit my tongue--I'm not really someone who talks shit to people in an unprovoked way as we're both walking down the street--but I think that if I do choose to start comparing strangers to celebrities, I'll start with, say, Selma Hayak. Or Justin Bieber.