I believe when I enter a supermarket, I develop schizophrenia, because there’s a bunch of noisy, annoying voices fluttering around in brain, knocking around in my skull…
Let me start over:
My family isn’t allowed in the supermarket anymore after the egg incident of 2009. Angus, my little eight year old cousin, took it upon himself to free the baby chicks from their carton prisons by opening them up and dumping them on the floor. And his efforts were wasted after apprehending that they were all—obviously—dead. Of course it took him thirty cartons to realize this.
The manager working at the time was actually very kind to pardon him, being he was tinier as a seven year old… then my elder, yet so much more immature sister Piper and brother Emerson decided it would be a good idea to slide across the floor like it was a water slide. The guy yelled at them as loud as he could in the middle of the store, offending my mother, which made her yell back.
The end decision was my whole family is banned to shop there (Brando, who I’m somehow related to and my uncle Fernando were banned as well, but for a completely different reason that isn’t appropriate to be told). “Thankfully” I wasn’t there—because I hate to be seen in public with them—so now I have to do all the grocery shopping.
“Did you get that?” My aunt Evelyn questioned my intellect for the third time today.
While my mother panicked over my abilities to do something correctly—meaning her way, “And remember to get the most expensive brands. I want only the best, so Mouse sweetie you have to really look.”
“But try to go with the sales,” My father adds.
And so the schizophrenia is acting up again.
Right now I have two cell phones to my ears, one lodged between my neck and shoulder while I’m able to hold onto the other, being I do need a free hand to push the cart.
Our supermarket is a convenient six minutes from the house, which didn’t pop up in anyone’s judgment before they got the boot, that the other supermarket is a whopping thirty minutes away. My family is the type to leap rather than ask questions.
“Yes, yes, yeeees,” I try to stress. “I have the list and I do this every week so I understand. Can you all just get off my back?!”
“Mouse there is no reason for the yelling,” My uncle Moritz’s comes from nowhere, his European accent seems thicker today than normal.
“What?” I huff, “When did you get on the line?”
“I’ve been.”
“Yeah, Mousey it’s a freak’n free country,” Surly as usual, Piper’s voice also spouts from the phone.
My patience is wearing thin. I tell them this, seriously but still calmly through my irritation, “Get. Off. The. Phone.”
“Yes, please,” Mom attempts to back me up, letting me think that at least, until she said “You’re going to distract him and then he’ll get it all wrong.”
Snorting and cackling, Piper and Moritz get off the phone, adding their own little comments.
That’s the last straw.
Only furious now, I bark “Everyone off the phone! I’ve had it!”
Exhaling hot steam from my nostrils, I snatch the phone from my ear and hand, chunking them into my back-pack in the baby seat. Feeling the anger shoot through all my veins, I try to groan it all away, while deeply running my fingers up my forehead and through my hair.
“Are we alright over there?” I hear a familiar voice that stuns all my movements.
Fearfully, I peak pass my arms to Tulip. Tulip is the first girl to ever call me “kind of awesome.” She’s the only person I know who doesn’t think I’m crazy for mentioning my family. This is the only person who can call me Mouse without it bothering me… she also works here.
“Oh, um” I utter out of pure pathetic-ness and put my hands back on my cart, while I nodded for some reason. “I’m, uh good.”
Looking at me like I’m crazy, she nods too like it’s a game and says “Good.” Her eye liner rimmed eyes glance over my cart filled with random pricey items. “What’s the occasion?”
“Uh, my mother decided to host a neighbor's dinner party.”
“A neighbors? Doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of it being the neighbor’s?”
“You’d think?”
Amused, Tulip chuckles, letting me relax in a way as she strolls beside me. I walk forward and she follows, asking “Need a shopping buddy?”
I raise a brow at her, “Don’t you have to work at, you know work?”
“Nah, well yeah but I wanna get fired so it’s no big deal.”
“Wait. Why do you want to get fired?”
“Cuuuuuaaase,” She moans, bobbing up and down as an upset child would “I wanna work at Subway soooo bad!”
“Subway?”
She straightens up with her lip pursed and eyes wide, being totally serious “I want to smell like sandwiches.”
“Then quit,” I laugh.
“I can’t. If I quit another job my parents won’t let me get another one.”
It’s true. She has quit more jobs than my Gran-Gran has switched foot lotions. Tulip has worked since the seventh grade and hasn’t been able to keep one for even a month because she gets bored easily. She’s the same in class. If we stay on a subject too long, she’ll get up and leave. People find her strange, but she’s almost bland to me.
“Well I can’t help you,” I tell her and come to the fruits and vegetables isle, going for the apples.
She shrugs, molesting some apples of her own. “Whatever. I’ll figure out a… way…” Her voice drifts off as I watch her body tilt to side.
“What are you doing?”
Obviously confused, her eyes squint and head moves forward. She poses this question to me, letting dread fill my stomach, “Isn’t that your family?”
My stomach loaded with terror, it falls to my feet and I take one large gulp before I turn around. Before I see the household dressed up in ridiculous “disguises.”
In panic, I quickly rush over, whispering shrilly “What are you guys doing?!”
“Well Mouse,” my Mom sighs dressed as a flapper girl with her hand around my father in a gangster outfit “you hung up so quickly I couldn’t finish what I wanted to say.”
“And why everyone else?!”
Literally everyone is here. Fernando is even holding my narcoleptic relative Brando in a wheel chair, dressed as a clown.
“It seemed fun,” A pimped out Piper shrugged.
Everyone nodded and made their small agreements and I just shook my head.”No, no, no. I will not let you guys get me kicked out. If we have to use that other super market you’re all going to make me drive thirty minutes away every week and if I do that, I will kill. All of you.”
“So testy,” Moritz comments, his height barely reaching my side, who’s costume seems to be only a pair of sunglasses, which are almost being eaten by his beard that’s half his size.
“Oh shut-” I’m unable to finish for Angus bolted down an isle, screaming:
“The chickens!”
The fear passes through my veins again. I yell out, “Stop him!”
Instantly, we all dash for him, but being how my family is competitive beyond belief, my much bulker brother pushes me into a pyramid of cans that spill and crash upon the floor. I can only watch my family knock over things on shelves, making them burst open and break.
“SHOE LASSES TASTE OF SAMON!” Brando screeches, being wheeled away and into an aisle, while Fernando decided to go off without him.
Piper trips Emerson who then grabs her legs, causing her to topple over. She growls, kicking him in the shoulder. Just as angry, he grabs a bag of flour and decides to deck her with it. Her eyes wide and mouth to the floor, Piper grabs flour and hits him with it, starting a flour fight, making a fog of white smother the air around them.
Beyond that, Angus made it to the eggs being able to throw two cartons back and all over the floor. My father was able to grab him in time, unfortunately he was smashed into from behind by the other four adults, making the little demon go off and grab more cartons.
But that didn’t matter anymore. Now my family has to start fighting on whose fault this is and as they bicker I sigh, stand up and rub my eyes. “This can’t be happening.”
“What in the?!” A man yells, running up. “You people?! You’re all aren’t allowed in here.”
“Listen,” I say desperately, coming up to him “they were just trying to get Angus and well it got a little messy, but we’ll pay for anything damaged-”
He stops me, his brow narrowed and hard “And who are you?”
I can’t believe I’m saying this but I sigh and tell him, shamefully. “I’m with them.”
Before I knew it, the whole family is sitting out by the curb of the store, eating ice cream from a nearby shop, well except me.
“Sure you don’t want some?” Piper casually asked me, covered in flour.
“Yeah.” I utter as nice as I can, “I’m sure.”
She shrugs and I’m amazed at how easy going these people are. We were just yelled at like children in front of dozens of strangers, and then kicked out and the first thing in their mind is to get ice cream?! Where is the logic in that?
“TELL THE ALIEN I WANT THE PINK ONE!” Brando yells out, scaring a women and her baby who are walking by.
Fernando chuckles and rubs the old man’s back, soothing him, “Of course my friend.”
Maybe this is normal or maybe my standards of family are too high... I don’t know. This is the only life I have. I just wished it wouldn’t get me into trouble every five seconds.
From the corner of my eye I see Tulip walk out of the store. Unconsciously I stand up to greet her. She sees me and makes this weak smile, “Hey.”
I notice she’s out of her uniform. “What? What happened? Why are you out here?”
“Got fired.”
“What?! Why?!”
She shrugs, “I said I didn’t want to kick out some nice people, who I think were actually just trying to be useful to a family member.”
“Oh...” I can only say, “Well I’m happy for you.”
Tulip smiles wider, making me smile. Now this is relaxing. I could get used to-
“Is this the girl Tulip you have a crush on?” Moritz decides to say, making my whole family stare simultaneously.
So much for that.
Instantly my face bursts into flames, engulfing my cheeks with red as Tulip just gazes at me in shock.
So going to the supermarket ended with us paying for food we can’t use and me wanting to kill myself and everyone around me.
This is what happens when my family goes to the supermarket.