Shopper's Remorse

I should have known it was going to be a bad day. I awoke that morning to drizzling rain. The birds were squealing. A ghastly sound they made, like a heavy-metal band in a train wreck. I crawled out of bed and realized I was officially a non-smoker. I hadn’t had a cigarette in thirty-six hours. I should have felt pleased with myself; instead I felt like ripping my hair out or, better yet, ripping out someone else’s hair. Maybe just one cigarette wouldn’t hurt? A little smoker’s cough never hurt anyone, right? Just some yellow teeth, bad breath and a little heart disease, right? Nope… I would be strong. I could do this. I really wanted to quit, so I decided to wait it out.

I looked in the fridge to make some type of a quick breakfast, but there was nothing I wanted to eat. I decided to make coffee instead. I could almost smell the aroma of a casual Maxwell House moment. I filled the coffee maker with water, scooped the Cinnamon Hazelnut blended coffee into the filter and pressed the “on” button. Relief overcame me and I knew I would feel less irritable after a nice cup of relaxing coffee.

As I waited for the coffee to brew, I walked through the house and opened a few windows. Perhaps today would be a good day after all. I slammed the windows shut as quickly as I’d opened them. Good Grief! It had to be a hundred and eighty degrees outside. Oh well, no fresh air today. I heard a curious bubbling sound coming from the kitchen so I quickly darted from the living room back to the kitchen just in time to see coffee bubbling out of the coffee maker, onto the counter, and dripping all over the kitchen floor. Nothing seemed to be going right today. I knew all I really needed was a cigarette and everything would be much better. But I was truly dedicated this time.

This was my seventh attempt at quitting smoking, and I really didn’t want to spend my life smelling like an ashtray. Nope… I would wait it out. I knew I could do this.
I needed a few things for the house anyway, including apparently, a new coffee maker and some groceries; so I decided I would go to the store to buy some groceries and a few other things. I grabbed the car keys and my sunglasses and headed out the door. I’d forgotten the air conditioner in my car wasn’t working, so I rolled down the windows as I drove. Of course I hit every single light I could possibly hit. I sat in my car at every stop, sweating in the sweltering heat.

I was becoming more and more irritated by the minute. I had fantasies of running into the convenience store like a mad woman and sticking my head straight into the ice cooler. As I sat there fantasizing about my ice escapades, a honey bee flew into my car. I quickly attempted to get out of the car and shoo the bumbling buzzard out, but as I reached for the door handle the honey bee flew smack dab into my face and stung me on the forehead. Boy, I really needed a cigarette. It was all I could think about. Maybe now wasn’t the time to quit smoking. Perhaps I should wait for a less stressful time in my life. No, No, No! I could do this!

I continued my sweaty sweltering bee stung drive to the store. As I reached the parking lot I began to relax a little. The ice cooler was only minutes away. Maybe I would grab a bag of ice and keep it in my cart while I shopped. I could occasionally place my head inside of it, like a dehydrated ostrich. After driving through the parking lot for a very long five minutes, I finally found a spot, only to be stymied by a four hundred year-old woman in a Lincoln. She completely cut me off and took my spot and for a brief second, I thought she might be the perfect candidate for having her hair ripped out. I thought better of it when I realized she barely had any hair and what she did have of it was blue. I didn’t want clumps of little old lady hair stuck under my finger nails, now did I? I proceeded to park my car in the next available spot and head into the store. My attitude was becoming worse by the minute. Hostility was beginning to emanate from my every pore.

Now this was one of those superstores where you could buy anything from boxes of macaroni and cheese to a new dresser or even lingerie. As I entered the superstore, I felt completely relieved of all my irritation. It was so nice and cool. I was instantly chilled, so I decided to skip the ice chest altogether and just begin shopping. I was delighted to be out of the heat and the traffic lights and inside the nice cool superstore. Unfortunately, the relief lasted only seconds when a woman carrying a giant bag of dog food and pushing two screaming children in a shopping cart ran over my poor little left foot. I wanted to scream, but I figured it wasn’t worth the scene. I really, truly needed a cigarette, but I knew I could be strong. I knew if I could go just one more day without a cigarette, the cravings would subside. Once again, I put thoughts of smoking out of my mind and I just continued to shop, although I now shopped with a limp.

I realized an hour and a half had gone by, so I made my way to the register. I wasn’t quite sure where that hour and a half went. It was as if I had been in some type of shopping time-warp. This occasionally happened to me while shopping. Admittedly, I didn’t think about a cigarette once while shopping and felt very proud of myself. Perhaps the cigarette cravings were already subsiding.

As I approached the counter, I realized that I would probably spend another hour and a half in line. There were at least four or five people with carts as full as mine in every check-out aisle. I chose a line that seemed to be the lesser of all the aisle evils and I waited, and I waited, and I waited. While waiting, I wondered to myself if I went outside and smoked just one cigarette if the line would still be the same when I came back. NO! I would be strong. And anyway, why chance it? So I continued to wait and wait and wait.

Finally, after thirty minutes of waiting, it was my turn. I started unloading everything from my cart onto the belt. I unloaded office supplies, make-up, shampoo, DVDs, CDs, lingerie, shoes, a shower curtain, beans, and finally, a coffee-maker. I wondered to myself how all this stuff got into my cart and starting thinking I should put some of it back. But it just wasn’t possible to put any of it back. Somehow I needed all of it. I didn’t need any of it before I came into the superstore, I now needed all of it, every bit of it and I wasn’t putting anything back! In fact, maybe I would even buy a pack of cigarettes. NO, no I would not. I would not buy cigarettes.

As the clerk ran each item by the scanner, it pleasantly chirped: 'beep, beep, beep…..' then from nowhere, instead of a beep, it buzzed. Apparently this particular box of PLAY-DOH wasn’t properly priced. As if I hadn’t had enough annoyances for one morning, the clerk then proceeded to annoy me even further. She just kept trying to ring the PLAY-DOH up the same way, over and over again. The PLAY-DOH just kept making that horrific buzzing sound. She entered some numbers from the back of the PLAY-DOH box, then pressed a button and then pressed “enter”…. 'buzz' 'buzz' 'buzz'. Rather than try a new method, she just kept doing the same thing, over and over and over again. I was becoming furious. I once heard the definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over again and expecting a different outcome. I reassured myself, that she was simply insane; however this did nothing to help prevent my ever increasing rate of frustration. I realized then, that I had no real use for PLAY-DOH. I didn’t even know why I was buying PLAY-DOH. So I told her she could put the PLAY-DOH away. I didn’t want it anymore. That was it! I had had it! I was getting a pack of cigarettes. I politely asked the clerk for a pack of cigarettes and some kid ran to the customer service counter, grabbed a pack and placed them in my hand. No sooner than the cigarettes were in my hand did I feel mingling waves of guilt and relief.

She finished ringing the groceries which, by the way, totaled two hundred twenty-eight dollars and ninety-six cents. What the hell had I bought? A feeling of true shopper’s remorse overcame me, but I knew I would have a cigarette in a minute and everything would be ok. I daydreamed about smoking one in my car on the way home. And this time, if a bee stung me, I would burn it with my cigarette! Ha! It was right at the height of my delusions of cigarette grandeur, that the clerk looked right at me-- looked me directly in the eye and said, “I need your ID, ma'am.” I looked into my purse and my heart sunk. I realized I had left my ID at home. I told her I didn’t have my ID on me and I promised her I was well over 18 years old and that in fact, I was thirty-three years old.
She then said, “Well, I still need your ID.”
So I said, “But you just called me “ma'am”. You obviously know I’m over 18 or you wouldn’t have called me “ma'am”. Plus, what teenager buys over two hundred dollars worth of shower curtains, make-up, clothing and home furnishings with her groceries?”
She replied, “Well, I still need your ID,” as if she was a broken record or a Stepford employee.

It was as if she was able only to respond in short pre-programmed sentences. I lost it. I thought for sure I was going to pull out her hair. The next thing I knew, I had cocked back my right hand with the cigarettes in it and let em’ fly. I let em’ fly right at this poor girl’s skull. The cigarettes then flew out of my hand, bounced off the side of the clerks head and landed directly at the feet of the store manager, who then proceeded to throw me out of the store. I spent the next hour and a half, outside the store, embarrassingly trying to explain my way out of a night in jail for assaulting a clerk with a pack of cigarettes. I think that may have been the potential charge, assault with an addictive substance.

Fortunately, I did not go to jail; however I was embarrassed and defeated. On the drive home it occurred to me it just wasn’t worth it. Smoking just wasn’t worth it. I definitely would never again attempt to buy another pack of cigarettes. I realized it was all just a matter of perspective anyway. It could have been a lovely day if I’d just had a more optimistic outlook.