Among my many flaws - at least the ones I'm willing to own up to - is the driving need to make sense of the random unsense that life constantly throws our way. I dislike messiness, clutter and emotional chaos and crave order. Symmetry and neatness comfort me. A crookedly hung picture, an imperfectly aligned bookshelf, even a notepad with a turned up corner or a bent page can be my undoing. I prefer things to work on demand and properly with a minimum of drama or defiance. Sadly, life feels no such obligation to neatness or discipline.
Life is most definitely not tidy.
Standing in the condiment aisle of the grocery store, I wait more or less patiently for the enormous lady in the flowered dress to decide on a brand of ketchup. She picks up a Heinz bottle, squints to read the label and replaces it next to a glass jar of sweet pickles. She doesn't seem to care for the Hunts bottle either. She reads its label, shakes her head and puts it back next to the yellow mustard. I clear my throat, hoping she might notice that her sideways shopping cart is blocking traffic on either side. She glances at me and frowns but makes no effort to accommodate me or the shoppers coming from the opposite direction, reaching instead for the generic ketchup. When this doesn't suit her, she slips it back on the shelf, deliberately inserting it not where it belongs but into a row of Louisiana Hot Sauces.
Excuse me, ma'am, a middle aged gentleman calls politely from behind me, If you could just move your cart....
The woman turns slowly, curling her lip in a unattractive sneer and raising one fist - middle finger extended - in a defiant gesture. There's a collective gasp and then a dead silence.
Go 'round, white bread, she says only it's more of a snarl than a suggestion.
I confess that up until that moment, I'd been thinking in terms of satire and stupidity, planning on how I might write about this little grocery store insurrection. Anarchy In Aisle Seven, I thought I might call it, be it laziness, poor eyesight or mischief, it might make a good story, but the woman in the flowered dress had suddenly changed all that.
That's it, lady, the man behind me announced angrily, I'm calling the manager!
There's a cop up front, another customer - a well dressed woman with a toddler in tow - called out, This bitch needs to be arrested!
At the mention of the police, the woman in the flowered dress grew even more defiant. She grabbed a can of olives and hurled it at the woman with the child then whirled around and began slamming her grocery cart into the shelves repeatedly. Mustard, ketchup, pickles and several bottles of Newman's Own came crashing down, mayonnaise jars and squeeze containers of barbecue sauce went flying, shoppers were fleeing in a tangle of carts and condiments. I'd backed off a safe distance away but was still having trouble believing what I was seeing and making any sense of it. It was as sorry a moment as I've ever seen.
The manager, a rumpled and overworked 30-something with circles under his eyes arrived, followed seconds later by a city cop. They promptly cleared the aisle of the remaining shoppers and approached the woman in the flowered dress. I watched in disbelief as she maneuvered her cart to block them but they rushed her, pinning her arms behind her back - with no small effort - handcuffing her and leading her away. And still she fought. I was reminded of a bullfight, with the exhausted bull surrounded, panting and glassy-eyed, but not defeated.
Aisle Seven looked as if a minor tornado had passed through and a crowd had gathered by the time I piled catfood and kitty litter into my cart and headed for the cash registers. Store employees took it in stride, as if they'd seen it all before.
I gave up trying to make sense of it. I just wanted as much distance as possible between me and the wreckage because for a neat freak, Aisle Seven was the stuff nightmares are made of.
Just like a good - and mostly true - story.
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