At the grocery store July 10, 2008

Stopped off with Gatito to pick up a few things this evening. The woman in front of me eyed my package of Popsicles and said, “Those are really terrible for him. You shouldn’t feed him that stuff.”

I stared, stunned.

“All those chemicals,” she continued. “The diet stuff is terrible. Better to have real sugar.”
“These aren’t diet,” I told her.
“Yes, they are,” she insisted.
“No, they’re not.”
“They say ‘free’ on the package,” she pressed.
“Yes. Free prizes,” I said, showing her. “But I don’t recall asking for your opinion.”
“Oh,” she says. “Well I’m just a nosy busybody.”
By then she was done and I was handing over my reusable bags to the checker. As she left, I shouted after her, “Your plastic bags are destroying the planet!”
Her only response was to duck her head and walk a little faster.
Asshole.

***

Speaking of assholes…. In the parking lot a few minutes later, I saw a woman leave her car with a toddler in her car seat and a man that I seriously thought was dead in the front seat, Weekend at Bernie’s style. The engine was running, presumably for the air conditioning but hello? Child in back seat, passed out man in front, keys in the ignition?! Tell me that’s not a recipe for a Lifetime original movie.

After a couple of minutes, the child began to playfully kick the man’s head, big smile on her face. Totally normal two-year-old behavior, in my opinion. Is she just supposed to sit in the back seat of a car with no music, no one to talk to, no toys, no books? I mean, she’s not a plant. The man roused himself and started yelling at her. The girl began to cry and seconds later, the man was again passed out in the original position. It was such a bizarre and sad scene.