Smile Pretty for the Camera

It is hot, swelteringly hot. I have only about twenty minutes. I am on a mission.

We are out of food and I am hungary. Four tired cranky boys are waiting at home to be fed and my cupboards are totally bare. We have used up even the basic food items. The kids had to fight the cat for the last bowl of stale cereal sans milk some hours earlier. They will jump me as soon as I enter the house carrying the brown paper grocery bags.

I know I should not shop on an empty stomach and return with eight times the amount of junk food than a human should consume in a lifetime, but I am left without choice. I know my large warehouse type grocery store like the back of my now malnourished hand. I should as it is my most frequented hang out. I know the lay out of my stomping grounds so well I have been known to rearrange misplaced food items back to their proper shelves on my own.

On this day I am in my power shop mode. Up and down every single isle I fly, throwing necessities into my cart faster than a speeding bullet. When the rows are open, I shove my cart ahead of me to roll on it's own so I can grab products with both hands and toss items basketball style into it without stopping. My store plays alternative music so I sing along with the Talking Heads as I near strip the shelves of their contents.

In the candy/bread lane a box of Dots accidents falls off the shelf, ripping it's self on my teeth, so I am forced to eat as I continue to shop. Of course the box nestles itself in the handy cup holder within easy reach. I grin my rainbow grin at the other customers and head my mountainous cart to the checkout.

I am bagging and arranging all my goodies after emptying my checking account to pay for this bounty when a tie wearing manager type man approaches me. "Excuse me, Ma'am, can I have a moment?" "Yeah", I answer with a vague look on my face as I suck fruit goo out of my back molar. "In my office please?" Oh rats! Office man thinks I was stealing candy! Without putting down the box of Dove ice cream bars I am packing, I grab my receipt and walk with him past all the large dog food bags and up the stairs into his office.

In his office there is another man sitting desk mulitscreen TV's positioned infront of him. He continues to stare at them as I sit down at the managers desk with a shaky feeling of being caught for my illicit actions. "I paid for my candy!", I blurt, suppressing a cry and shoving my receipt at him. "I eat only things I pay for!" "It's ok ma'am- that is not what we are concerned about." Then what...?" "Look", the man in front of the screens finally speaks. "Watch." He is rewinding the pictures on the screens. Black and white images jerk discombobulated backwards. He hits play and I see myself, moments earlier. What does this prove I wonder, if I am not in trouble for my eating? I can feel the ice cream now softening in my hot trembling hands.

There I am in produce, squeezing the Brauborns and grabbing the biggest bunch of bannanas I can find. "Yeah?", I question, wondering if I bruised to many apples in my haste. "Just watch", he answers as the manager continues to stand and look out his window down from were I had just came from. What was he looking for? Cops? Back up?

I am in the deli section on the screen now- pointing to the case for pastromi the girl had wrapped for me. Oh I get it now- this is a hidden camera show- will I see a sign on my back or toilet paper hanging off me? I open the ice cream bars slowly as I continue to watch myself and feeling flushed with embarrassment.

"Keep watching now, see that guy there?" "Yeah," I answer offering him a bar- feebly hoping to bribe the man to destroy this film and not send it in for money. The guy on the screen he is pointing to is non-descriptive. I do not even remember noticing him in the store. "He concerned us, his behavior suspious, that is why you are here." "Why am I sitting here, if HE concerned you?", I pull the ice cream out of my mouth and ask. "Look closer, we noticed him following you through the entire store."

I watch in dumbfounded amazement at the freeze frame images of myself in my shopping zone. Bending over in my short shorts to pick up a case of water, dancing while picking out toothpaste, jumping up to get the unbroken chips on the top shelf, all with this same man always within close proximity of me, watching, his cart near empty. He was evaluating me as I was oblivious. I even grinned at him in the carb isle.

It was a eerie violated feeling I had when that ice cream headache hit. "Damn" I said slumping in my chair with one hand on my forehead, bare stick in my mouth. "Stalker in isle seven". I am thinking. He could have worn a "I'm a pervert", shirt and I would not have noticed. "You don't happen to know this man do you?" the nice manager men ask me. "No- can't say as I have ever seen him before." "Well he has left the parking lot. (out side camera). Would you like us have someone help you load your grocer's into your car, or follow you home?" "Wow- thank you, but no, I'll be fine", I answer with a totally creeped out feeling as I left the store unharmed.

I'm trying to think of the appropriate thank you for these alert and observant gentleman. Home made cookies or flowers would just be redundant. Perhaps a nice Thank You spelled out across my butt cheek's as I bend over that water in isle seven next time...