Grocery Cart Aisle

SANITY ON BACKORDER

From Hive Peak Boulevard

By Danu Marche

Humor Columnist

Published: November 11, 2024

Synapse & Spectacle

⸻

This week, grocery carts have declared open warfare.

It happened in Aisle 1. One of those grocery store lanes between the windowed front wall of the store so narrow you wonder if the architect moonlighted as a submarine designer. I was heading north with a modest basket on wheels. My opponent — heading south — was pushing the grocery version of a medieval siege engine. We made eye contact. There was no turning back.

You know how these moments go. Two rational adults, each perfectly capable of reversing, instead commit to a silent standoff that somehow lasts longer than certain U.N. peace talks. The aisle’s ambient soundtrack — distant beeps of scanners, the suspicious hum of the rotisserie chicken carousel — faded until all I could hear was the steady squeak of my cart’s one rebellious wheel, mocking me.

She nudged forward. I countered. Neither of us blinked. This was less “grocery shopping” and more “cold war in the cereal aisle.”

Halfway through our standoff, my peripheral vision caught sight of another one — a squirrel outside the front window of the store, balancing on the cart return railing with a beefstick in its teeth like it was smuggling state secrets. He froze mid-bite to glare at me. Maybe he sensed my tactical disadvantage. Maybe he just hates Fruit Loops. This town seems to be littered with these things. Are they keeping tabs on me?

The thing about grocery cart combat is that it reveals your true self. Some people go for charm: a smile, a gentle “oops.” Others — myself included — treat it like a high-stakes geometry problem. If I pivot my basket exactly 37 degrees, I can squeeze past without touching the shelf of gluten free cardboard pellets, right? Wrong. The overpriced rodent droppings trembled ominously.

She tried the same maneuver from her side. We both ended up locked in an accidental, synchronized cha-cha, forward two steps, back one. At this point, I suspect the store’s security footage looked like an avant-garde interpretive dance titled “Two People Who Refuse to Yield.”

Then came the pivot. Not the cart’s — mine. I realized we’d both been raised on the unwritten law that if you move first, you lose. But what if the law was wrong? What if true victory was surrender? So I reversed. She did the same. We met in the middle like awkward diplomats, maneuvering past each other with the stiff politeness usually reserved for in-laws and tax auditors.

As we cleared the lane, she muttered something about “common courtesy,” and I offered a tight smile that could be translated as, Enjoy your hollow victory. The squirrel, still on the railing, executed a slow, sarcastic clap. It did. I saw it.

I can’t stop thinking about it. Somewhere, in some parallel universe, we’re still there — locked in a forever aisle, blocking each other until the store runs out of everything except pickled beets. And in that universe, the squirrel probably owns the store.

So until grocery carts learn how to negotiate on their own, I’ll be shopping online. My groceries may arrive bruised, wilted, or entirely substituted, but at least no one will witness my Braveheart face in front of the generics cereal shelf.

“If you’ve ever met a grocery cart more stubborn than the person pushing it, please send me its battle record.”

©2024 Danu Marche