I’m at the grocery store this weekend. Over by the eggs; I need to buy eggs. There’s a girl there with her boyfriend. She’s skinny and expressionless, as grey as her t-shirt. He’s pudgy, wearing shorts, loose t-shirt, backwards baseball cap. You know. The only kind of 20-something guy they make anymore. That’s the look. He’s carrying the basket because that’s what those guys do now while she opens an egg carton and checks the eggs. I mutter excuse me, reach in, and grab a carton. I do my quick check. They look fine. The girl, on the other hand, is still checking her eggs. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch her go through this process: Pull egg out of carton, hold it close to face, turn it around, really examine it, put it back in carton, take the next egg, do the whole thing again. I’ve moseyed over to the milk but I’m still watching them. Apparently, she does this with each egg. A dozen eggs. Each egg examined with a grey clinical intensity. The guy stands by and watches, but when she catches him looking, he looks quickly away, stares at the cheese bricks in the basket. His chest expands as he holds a huge, deep breath he’s taken. I can literally hear him thinking, Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it. Slowly, he breathes out, bounces the basket against his thighs to distract himself. She’s on her fifth egg. The way she examines it so piercingly and holds it up to the light, I half-expect the egg to start blushing. I certainly feel embarrassed for it. Finally, the guy speaks up.
“You’re like that guy.”
Uh-oh. I have a bad feeling. I start to move away.
She flicks her eyes towards him. Her brows actually move down. Uh-oh. An expression.
“WHAT guy?”
I can hear him muttering something, but I can’t make it out. Whatever it is, she is not happy. She snaps the egg carton shut, grabs the basket, and stomps away.
MONK! The only OCD case that kid has probably ever seen is MONK on TV.
and he’s thinking, “wow. is she always going to be like this? Is she going to get worse? Is she going to be like THAT GUY ON TV WHO CAN’T EVEN TOUCH ANYTHING!?!?”
Hahahahahahahahahaha
He’s probably even told her this before and she later eviscerated him for mentioning it AGAIN.
Marisa has got to be on the money (BTW “she later eviscerated him for mentioning it AGAIN”–hahahaha). Man, I’m getting old. The first thing I thought of was, “Inspector Twelve”!
The “the bad feeling”–methinks you’ve been around this sort of nuclear disaster before, T.
I love Monk, but I sure wouldn’t want to go egg shopping with him.
Too funny! Your story reminded me that I overheard something at the grocery store the other day that I wanted to write about. But, I’ve forgotten about it now.
you’re so right on marisa! that’s exactly who i thought of when i read tracey’s post. i just love watching monk.
Don’t really see a future for this couple, or if there is, it’ll be a pudgy grey miserable one.
This so reminds me of that grocery list you found (it was you, right?) The one with “organic” everything on it?
And weren’t there underlinings?
(I will admit to giving the eggs a quick poke to see if underside leakage has stuck them to the carton, in addition to the cursory visual scan. But that’s all.)
Kathi, overheard at Pei Wei: ‘I really love their food, but this tea is like drinking a scented candle.’
*sigh* Scenes like that make me sad. I also hate the scenes I see in the local grocery store here of couples fighting over something – like, for example, he thinks that the brand of canned peas she is buying is “too expensive” and they need to get the generic store brand to save 3 cents and she’s yelling that the store brand peas taste like s***…
I sort of vacillate between being sad (“How can anyone ever find love? I guess I will always be destined to be alone”) and being perversely grateful that I am alone, and I can decided what dang brand of peas (or, actually, in my case, none, because I hate peas) to buy.
Did life get harder in the past 10 years or so or am I just imagining it…it seems like I see so many couples who have bad problems, what I’d call deal-breaker problems, and they keep trying to muddle through them without making any effort to FIX it.
As for eggs? I open the box and just wiggle each egg to make sure it’s not a horrible mess underneath. I figure if I’m paying $2 or whatever it is now a dozen, I better at least make sure every egg in there is actually usable.
(Of course, half the time the sacker puts the eggs UNDERNEATH something heavy, rendering my inspection moot).
Sal – holy cow, I’d forgotten that post! All the underlinings. Maybe Tracey has met her in person now!
Poor girl. The egg MUST be perfect. Just BECAUSE. And you don’t understand, and you don’t care, and… I’m willing to lay eggs myself that she got that half-inspected carton home and only ate the inspected ones, at least until she could finish in peace.
I thought maybe the reference was to the guy in Clerks (the movie) who was checking each and every egg in the fridge in search of the perfect dozen.
They’ll get married…
…and divorce in 4 years.
If the couple had been my age, I’d have said the guy from Clerks. But since they were younger – I’d bet money on MONK. Of course, I even if Tracey were to run into them again – it would be in poor taste to ask the fellow just who he was comparing her to. So we’ll probably never know.