The Worst Couple In the World

10:30 PM. It is time to replenish my beverages.

I'll go small, and simple. A couple of 20 oz. bottles of soda. Just to tide me over till the weekend. Oh, and I need deodorant. Just ran out. I'd grab some aloe lotion but I can't reach the spot on my back that itches from sunburn, so no point. Just soda. And deodorant. Back scratcher? No, too extravagant.

The QFC is delightfully nearly empty. Quiet. To soda I go. But I am not alone. They are there as well--an apparently normal couple, both blonde, both tall, she cross-armed and perturbed, he genial, smiling, good-natured. Bearded, thickly, but well-kept. Dress shirt-and-shorts combo. Whatever. I reach for my soda.

"No, let's just get water," the woman says. It is less a suggestion than an order. The man picks up a brown thing (YooHoo? Do they even sell YooHoo?). The woman re-iterates: "No, just water."

He grins and keeps the YooHoo or whatever. The woman sighs loudly and stalks off, and he follows, seemingly delighted with this reaction. Whatever. I grab my sodas.

Now, deodorant. It should be over there, but hey, what's this, the frozen foods? Ice cream....haven't had ice cream in a while. Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream? Or something different? I could mosey on over and check it out, what harm could it do? Let's see, there we are...oh, my, so many flavors! Peanut butter cups in ice cream? Hell yes!

But no. Shouldn't, really. Not good for you, and besides, soda and deodorant. That's all we're here for. Time to move. I turn and head back down the aisle, but ahead of me, there they are again, passing by, on their way to God-knows-where, and she is adamant that "Dammit, I need something good to eat!" He is still grinning. I think for a half-second that he might be retarded but remind myself quickly that the dress-shirt and shorts combo is rather common. They pass by. I need to find the deodorant. I follow them. That is a mistake.

They are not heading for deodorant but for candy and chips. Oh christ what have I done. I'll never get out of here unscathed. I'm going to buy something here, I can't help it. But what? Haven't had Chips Ahoy! in a while. But potato chips are always delicious. And candy! Why not some candy? Haven't I been good? Didn't I walk somewhere yesterday or something? Reward my minuscule carbon footprint with sugar!

They're still talking. Or, to be more precise, she is still talking. "I'm the one who was sick, I get to choose!" she declares. My interest is piqued. What will she choose? What is worth all this fuss? I look down at her feet because I don't like looking people in the eyes. She has colorful socks and wears those clog-like shoes. Long legs covered in denim. The guy is wearing sandals, of course. And making noises, I can detect now...strange, almost musical...because it is musical, kind of, sort of, almost. He is humming along to the bland and inoffensive QFC in-store music. Something kind of soft-poppy, like maybe Vanessa Carlton? I don't know, but holy shit he knows the words. Holy shit he is holy shitting singing them.

The woman, rightly, shakes her head and begins to stomp away, but she stops, remembering she has a choice she gets to make. She grabs a pack of Chips Ahoy! more angrily than I've ever seen cookies grabbed before and stomps away. The man is laughing again. Clearly he derives no small amount of joy from frustrating and annoying his...his what? Partner? Special lady friend? I can't say for sure. I've only known them two minutes. But something tells me, a seventh or eighth sense perhaps, that when they fuck, their neighbors roll their eyes and turn up their televisions.

Potato chips taken, I move on. Find the deodorant, then leave--that is the plan, simple, easy to execute. But...do they have any of those twice-baked potatoes over in the deli? Could heat one up for dinner tomorrow...I stop dead in my tracks. I am at a grocery crossroads, on the threshold of needing a basket. I've already been here too long. I'd rather avoid another run-in with that disconcerting couple. But...it wouldn't hurt to just check...so I turn, baked-potato-bound.

Oh for fuck's sake there they are again! Are they following me? The song on the QFC's greatest hits compilation has changed, but he is still singing. Does he know all these songs? What is he, some kind of shitty-music Rainman? Between that and his incessant, stupid grin I'm really starting to hate him. I can sympathize with the woman's seemingly endless supply of spitefulness. She glares at her partner-person-guy, and he revels in it. Did he...yes, he did! He rubbed his belly with glee! This is preposterous. Fuck this baked potato shit, I'm out of here.

On my way to the cashier. Oh, shit...the deodorant. I could leave it. But no, I shouldn't be smelly. Argh. Alright, quickly now, it must be with all the other hygiene supplies, past the tampons and shampoo, maybe around wear the hair gel and zit creams are. Remember the super strength sunblock you neglected to put on your back? Probably purchased from the very same aisle. Go there, grab deodorant, go home. Simple as that.

I go there. I grab the deodorant. I am on my way home. I pass the magazines. I stop. I don't know why, I just do. I'm like that sometimes. Acting against my better interests. I am only human. But this is ridiculous. I don't even read magazines. There is no reason to stop here. There's a Time magazine. I don't read that. There's a Cosmopolitan. No thank you. There's a Sports Illustrated. Nah, no need. There's a video game magazine. Well, hold on a second....

No, no. That would be stupid. I play video games. I don't need to read about them in magazines. Especially not when I've got a stack of books I've not yet read that I should. That I want to. That I should want to. But do I? This magazine comes with a demo disc, that's pretty cool...

The song changes again. How long have I been standing here? Time to go. Thank you, manufactured indie-rock-sounding singer-songwriter guy. You've saved me eight dollars. To the cashier I go. It's open. No line. Just saunter up and pay and whoa wait there they are again, swooping in this time, taking my cashier from me I'll be stuck behind them nooooooooooooo!

They toss their goods--toss them, carelessly, for the poor cashier to fumble with and pick up--onto the low counter. They peruse the tabloids. Well, she peruses them--he is still fucking singing. Oh my good god in heaven where is the casual consequence-free violence of video games when you really need it? But he continues uninterrupted. Her mouth falls agape in shock, horror! She has read something truly disturbing.

"Is Brad bored with Angelina?" she reads aloud. I think of my friend Brad. I think, yes, he probably is bored with Angelina. But that is not what this headline is about. The woman kindly tells me, via unnecessarily loud declaration to her partner-man, what it is really about.

"Are people so bored they'd actually read this shit?" she wonders. "People are fucking idiots," she decides. Normally, I might agree with her. Actually, I do agree with her, even now, only I'm tempted to asterisk her claim and add in tiny letters "*and so are you." For on the counter near the plastic bags, opened, is a tabloid, recently being read by the kind-looking and honorably silent cashier who is ringing up her goods as she speaks. But it isn't her fault, she didn't notice that, gawping as she was at the damning front-page photograph in front of her of Brad and Angelina not looking at each other oh my christ they are doomed.

And then she notices something else, something that rocks the very foundations of her and her man-companion's world. She points at it with an accusatory and rigid index finger, and stops this short of shrieking. "You have a stain (dramatic pause) on your shirt!" she cries.

The man stops singing long enough to pull taut the offending piece of cotton-poly blend and verify this. He rubs at it, first in denial, and then vigorously in condemnation. And then, without the smallest hint or faintest whiff of irony, he shouts, with perfectly clear enunciation, "God-damn-it!"

The cashier has finished ringing them up, and waits patiently for payment. One of the night-stockers rumbles past, pulling a pallet of foodstuffs behind him, raising an eyebrow and giving the man a glance of "You're fucking kidding, right?" before going about his business. This has clearly ruined the man's day. His woman-lady cackles with vengeful laughter, and then pays the cashier. The man still holds his shirt out in front of him, staring intently at that bastard stain. He is now muttering to himself. I imagine violent, murderous words tumbling from his mouth, I imagine a shirt torn asunder and a barrage of tears as his lady-friend flings cookie crumbs at his crumpled and defeated form. These thoughts buoy my spirits as the cashier rings me up, as I exit the QFC, as I re-enter the outside world I seemed to have left behind so long ago, back in more innocent days, when all that mattered was soda and deodorant and there were no terror-couples to curdle the ever-simmering broth of misanthropy that burbles deep down within. These thoughts are then interrupted by a sleepy-eyed drunk in frat-boy clothing who stops me as I exit and mumbles a question at me.

"What?" I reply. More confused than confrontational, I hope.

"Is there a, uh....seven--uh, 7-11 around here?" he manages.

I point it out to him, just a few blocks up the street. On the left. He smiles. He is earnest, and sincere. Whatever his soul craves the 7-11 will provide. He backpedals, waves, says thanks, and begins to crookedly amble away towards his all-night paradise.

I crack. What's the point of misanthropy if people are going to be nice? I spy the evil couple crossing the street in the other direction. They each wrap one arm around the other's back. I clutch my bag of soda and deodorant and potato chips, and I walk home.