Sundays are Grocery Day
Sundays are grocery day.
Monday through Friday is work and Saturdays I like to relax. When I don’t have a scheduled grocery day I end up procrastinating and that leads to way too much eating out. Plus I made a New Years’ resolution to eat more at home.
So I head to my favorite grocery store, the one near the post office and beside that Greek restaurant I got food poisoning from last year. I park farther away so I can get a little bit of a work out as this month I’ve slagged off. I remembered the Cross Fit experiment failed. I was embarrassed half the women could lift more than me. Before that, the Brazilian Jui Jitsu I got tired of, rolling around on the ground.
Now before I can get inside I had to pass a group of girl scouts hawking cookies. But I had pledged my allegiance to buy girl scout cookies from a coworker’s daughter, therefore, I scurried past making sure to avoid eye contact.
Anyway, so I walk in and get a shopping cart but before I go any further, I make sure to take one of those sanitation wipes they offer and wipe my cart handle. It's disgusting if you think how many people have used the same cart previously. I hate getting sick.
Matter of fact, every time I get home I make sure to wash my hands. There was a book I read years ago about a woman who was over a hundred years old and she mentioned the whole washing your hands when you get home thing. Ever since taking that old lady’s advice I rarely get sick.
In the produce section I notice a pregnant woman shopping. What surprised me was how far along in her pregnancy she appeared. Her hair was half disheveled and half brushed at the same time, and her face appeared as if it had fought through months of sleep-deprived nights.
I felt sorry no one was there to help the poor woman. But who knows maybe she had other children and needed to get groceries for them? I know this is a military town and her spouse might be on deployment. She might have no family nearby.
Well after I notice the pregnant lady I go and do my standard shopping. I pick up the usuals including my must-haves of oatmeal, (not the instant but the old fashioned), avocados, and my guilty pleasure; butter pecan ice cream. I then head to the checkout. I find the shortest line and in front of me is a short, balding guy in his 50s with his wife. In front of them is the pregnant woman I saw earlier.
Then it started to happen.
The pregnant woman (I’ll call her Barbara as she looked like someone I knew named Barbara), let out a loud moan, then another moan, then barged through the couple in front of me. She past my shopping cart and slumped to the ground in the open area in front of the checkout lines.
Immediate shock waves reverberated through my body. Was she about to have a baby in the grocery store? Was this really happening? Then she says, “I’m having a baby!” “Oh my God!.”
There must be a nurse, doctor, or someone with experience in delivering a baby in the store? Any second someone would help, right? However, the strangest thing happened. People stopped their shopping from all over the store and began to surround the woman in a circle. I had been one of the closest to her initially and no way was I going to be in the back. I made sure to be in the inner ring of the circle.
However, instead of helping her, they took out their phones. Not some but all. I looked around and saw tiny phones, lightweight phones, pink phones, bulky phones, work phones, old phones, flip phones, cracked screen phones. I turned to my right and even witnessed a toddler sitting on his dad’s head and shoulders with a toy phone taken out! It did not matter the gender, age, or ethnicity. I saw a red-haired, freckled-faced teenage girl and next to her a pudgy forty something-year-old Middle Eastern man — all with phones out to record.
I couldn’t believe what was going on. People would rather not help someone in dire need if it meant losing the opportunity to record the moment with their phones. After taking a moment to survey the odd scene that was transpiring before my very eyes, I had to do something.
With the pregnant, well, at this point, halfway pregnant woman not far from me, I decided to take action. I put my shopping cart full of groceries to the side, reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone I bought a couple of months ago. I then hit the video button on the phone and started to record.
How many times was I ever going to witness something like this in my life? And at the grocery store of all places?
copyright R.C. Platt 2020
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