I’m not a big fan of running into people. It doesn’t matter who, and doesn’t matter where I run into them. Ok, a pub is okay; the casual clinking of bitters and a quick “nice to see you” and the event is over and done with. (Sure there was the now unforgettable (read: you’ll never live this one down) meeting that caused a night of excessive imbibement, but that was definitely an exception, not a rule).
Usually when I happen to spot someone with whom this sort of awkward “So, how have you been?” “Good, you?” “Good…oh I see you decided you had to have children….how original.” conversation must occur, I hide. This is not so easy to do when at the grocery store, and blindly slam my cart into the heel of a co-worker. (Are they still considered co-workers when though we share appointment within the same department, we don’t actually have cause to work together?) Anyway, there was no avoiding the inevitable, “So, it’s been at least half an hour since we saw each other in the hall….” nonsense.
Now the grocery store is absolutely the worst place to run into someone like this. Not only are there the idiocies of conversation assigned to this, but now they’re scrutinizing your cart. As luck would have it, this was the night I had threatened to serve Jeri fish sticks and macaroni and cheese. Perhaps they didn’t see that, perhaps they were more focused on the 3 ½ gallons of jugged wine in the cart (it’s how Jeri copes with marriage). Perhaps they found fault with my selection of beer? Who knows. It did piss me off a bit that they lingered so long at the hot dog section, I had threatened to serve that to Jeri for breakfast.
My favourite “run in”, was when I first began dating Jeri. I ran into her mom at the grocery store. I had no less than 3 boxes of condoms and a case of beer.
