Strangers in the aisle
Last night after work I go to Fresh Fields. I’m in the cereal aisle. Two guys walk past me, chat for a bit, then it looks like they’re going to split up to get different items. They walk away, in opposite directions. I remain deliberating over the bran flakes, transfixed. They reach the opposite ends of the aisle, me somewhere in between, when the one on my left yells to the other, “I’m going back over to the produce!”
His friend (boyfriend?), who has already disappeared, pops his head around the corner: “What?”
Almost instinctively, I want to turn to him, and helpfully chirp, “Produce! He’s going back to produce.”
But in the half-second before I open my mouth, I realize I am on the brink of an awkward, would-be-funny-only-in-retrospect moment, because then he’ll have nothing to say in response but, “Oh… uhh, okay. Thanks,” as he wonders why the cereal-aisle stranger is suddenly speaking on behalf of his… lover? committed life partner? (Perhaps at this point I’m not so transfixed on the bran flakes anymore.) I bite my lip, and smile. I let the scene continue without intervention, and leave the two men to sort out their supermarket wanderlust.
Epilogue. I can always depend on Fresh Fields to play music I haven’t heard in ages. Waiting in the checkout line, I hear “I Love the Nightlife.” Nice. “I love the nightlife, I got to boogie on the disco ‘round, oh yeah…” And then “Kung Fu Fighting” comes on. I smile again, and am suddenly conscious of doing so. I’m about to lose it. I stifle a laugh.
To hell with it. With both irony and nostalgia, I smile to my fellow queuers (and queers), exchanging a few knowing glances, as if to say, “Oh my god, when was the last time you heard this?” That’s right, get down. Now I’m moving to the music, while scanning the magazine covers above the conveyer belt. Ooh, Ewan McGregor on Out.
I am having the best time at the supermarket. Ever.