Friday, July 25, 2003

Where have you Ben?

This would have to happen just after I've pitched a 16-pack of Charmin into my cart, the four-by-four stack of plastic wrapped, double-roll "bathroom tissue" towering above the top of the basket. I duck around the corner into the next aisle but, soon enough, he's there too, the cutest guy in the store and he's headed my way.

It seems like I'm the grocery nearly every day recently, Schnucks mostly (motto: "Not just the friendliest stores in town, the only damn stores in town."), since my chaotic schedule leaves me with little idea when I'll be dining at home. I used to buy a whole week's provisions at once -- ah, those halcyon days of three months ago -- but now I'm doing the Mary Richards thing daily, tossing single-serving soups and Salad-in-a-Sack into my cart before hitting the self-serve checkouts.

This everyday marketing serves some appealing parts of my personality; I always get the freshest goods, I get a frequent dose of eye candy to satisfy my harmless bagboy fantasy fetish and, in these austere times, I never feel as though I'm dropping half my salary on food and household goods when I dribble it out a few dollars at a time.

The downside, though, is that it presents opportunities for embarrassment just like this more often. I'm being half-stalked through the store by a hottie when I'm buying discommodious (pardon the pun) personal items.

Why am I mortified to be discovered purchasing toilet paper? I don't know! Maybe it's just because we're societally encouraged to keep our bodily functions private. To never acknowledge that the loo even exists. Remember what a scandal it was to hear a commode flush on All in the Family? But we're all in the same boat, after all, and it's the little dinghy of that chipper sailor boy from the 1970s Tidy-Bowl commercials. Everyone, we are reminded even by children's literature, poops.

I guess I'm just a bit squeamish being reminded of it and even moreso when faced with the prospect of cruising a desirable fellow while toting along a bulk package that practically screams, "Yes, everyone poops! Especially me! Look! I must stock up for I defecate in astonishing volume!"

Yes, this is exactly the sort of thing that goes through my mind on a regular basis. And you wonder why happy hour accounts for the second largest chunk of my wages after groceries?

I should get over it, I know. I'm sure I'm the only person in the world so neurotic about keeping up appearances in the market. I'll never forget running into my friend Mike Lockheed at Walgreens in the early 90s. It was late on a Friday afternoon and, as we chatted about beer and boys and pleasant combinations thereof, I noted that he had packed his handbasket with at least a half dozen Fleet bottles, a 36-pack of condoms and a copy of Men's Fitness or somesuch.

"I've got a big weekend ahead," Mike quipped with a wink as we parted. I stood there for a moment in the aisle, wondering if I could ever be so casual a shopper and reflecting that the "Power Bottom / Bottom Power" t-shirt I'd seen Mike wearing the previous Saturday night at Twist was probably the most truthful advertising I was likely to see all month.

Anyway, back at Schnucks, I'm frantically trying to steer my basket to a vacant aisle, hoping I can park it and then saunter back with poised nonchalance to take a pass -- and perhaps make one -- at the lovely lad who seems still to be shadowing me. I've just rushed through the dairy section and ducked into the shampoo aisle when I run into him -- literally, smacking him in the butt with the front of my cart.

In an instant, I'm apologizing so quickly that the words hardly sound like English. He turns to face me and I notice that his eyes are wide and impossibly blue and, I'm certain of it, focused on the gigantic mound of Charmin bobbing from side to side in the basket, all thoughts of squeezing anything else I might have immediately leaving his mind.

When I stop blathering and begin to move off, he says, "Hey, don't I know you from somewhere?" It sounds so much like a line that I almost laugh but, when I consider him further, I realize he's right. It's been five or six years since I last saw him and he's shed some pounds, clearly hit the gym pretty hard, but this is without a doubt the same guy I spent many late nights fruitlessly flirting with at the late-night copy shop near my house.

We spend a few minutes catching up, my awkwardness almost entirely vanishing when I glance at his cart to spy a tube of Preparation H tucked among the fresh greens and pork steak. That we're both buying ass items is a bizarre comfort, and soon we're casually chatting, then flirting, and then, we're having lattes at a nearby coffee bar.

And later we're having something else guaranteed to raise the heart rate even faster than caffeine, the "your place or mine?" question settled when Ben -- I remember his name shortly after our collision and think to myself that if only one of us had been buying Ben-Gay, this would be the perfect punny story -- suggests following me home since he "lives in a bad neighborhood."

We said goodnight around midnight, made noises about getting together again soon, and prepared to part, only to discover that Ben's car had been stolen from in front of my house. In my "good neighborhood".

He took it in stride, better than I probably would have and, fortunately, his groceries were still in my fridge. After all, the car was insured but they weren't. I took him home, offered him a ride to work the next day, and slipped him my phone number as he got out of the car.

And then I went to Schnucks. I'd forgotten to get milk earlier.