Grocery store for eggs Saturday night

Saturday night and Sarah Jaine and I have nothing to do tomorrow except go swimming at my parent's house in the suburbs. It is my intention to make us breakfast tomorrow morning. Since I already have waffle mix, I intend to make us waffle tomorrow morning. I have no eggs though.

I check weather dot com to make sure that it isn't going to start raining the moment I am half-way (0.2 miles) to the grocery store. The website gives me no reason to believe I will be caught in a rain shower. Further, it informs me that temperatures are "slightly below average," which is a real selling point, as it has been hot as shit in Cincinnati forever (approximately three weeks).

Outside it is slightly cooler than I expected. My street smells exactly as it always smells, dirty and smoky. Except when it rains. Then, it smells like rain. It is a very short distance to the Kroger at 1 W Corry St. Down my own street and left up the hill, past two men in wheelchairs, one without legs, the other drinking a can of of Pepsi. At the cross walk a group of boys maybe 14 years old yelling to a girl "How old is you?" She says she is 17 and one boy breaks off from the pack to ask more questions from a far. I do not hear any of the other questions, nor does the girl seem to. Down the weird covered alley between the Walgreen's and Kroger. Some 20 feet in front of me standing slightly contorted in the green-yellow, bug-swarmed light a man lectures, gesticulating wildly, what to me is nothing. Just blank space in front of him. I become aware that I am slightly nervous. I hope he does not find in me an audience. I realize I hope he does not become violent. I very quickly decide if I would run or not. And I consider how foolish I would look to any standers by if I ran away. When I pass him he says "Hey, hows it going?"

The grocery store is always crowded at surprising times. Tonight mostly older women buying their ordinary groceries: plastic-wrapped packages of ground beef, 2% milk, chips, Big K cola, white bread, frozen pizzas- and guys about my age-ish buying cheap beer in bright blue 24 packs. I came only for eggs, but I got paid on Friday and decided to treat myself to something. For a while now my staples have been the cheapest, healthiest for the price, things I can make into a variety of meals: black beans, cheese, tortilla chips, pasta and tomatoes. I want something sweet. I walk down the "Health Foods" aisles (all both of them) looking left, then right, hoping to find the best tag in the place: "Manager Special." The best for me personally, yet one of the saddest things about this Kroger is that the Organic and "Health" food sells so poorly-either because it is too expensive or because it looks gross as hell-that, more often than not, something will be on sale for a ridiculous price, just to get it out of the store. No good manager specials tonight. Just some organic milk that will expired in two hours and some organic yogurt, the carton of which reports a expiration date that past about a month ago. Some dairy-free organic "ice cream" is super on sale though. I grab the vanilla and close the frosted freezer door. Than I put it back and get the Neapolitan. Because, say I get tired of Vanilla? Fucking right, there's strawberry and chocolate in there too. Done.

So, I get my organic, cage free eggs (despite my skepticism about how legit they are) and my dairy-free Neapolitan. My total is about 7 dollars. That would by exactly seven large bags of Kroger brand chips, about seven cartons of Kroger brand eggs (have you seen those videos of chicken farmers literally throwing chickens into cramped cages? Those kind of eggs)roughly 32 rolls of Kroger Value brand toilet paper (which I do use) or something like 105 slices of Kroger Value brand white bread.

I walk around the other side of the building on my way home, as the aforementioned alleyway I find generally creepy. There is a lot of traffic and I consider whether or not I am wasting my Saturday night. I do not pursue this thought for very long. I find the right key to my security gate under the lamp post. Some one moved into the apartment below ours today and I expect to see him outside for some reason. He is not outside. The ice cream substitute I bought isn't even that good.