A/N: Based on a true series of emotions

Groceries

I have an honest fear of supermarkets. A phobia, even.

Markasuperiorusphobius, if I were to name it.

I hate them, and must avoid them at all costs in order to prevent depression of the most miserable degree—a degree so intense and crippling that any other normal human being suffering the same sudden affliction would find it quite impossible to remain standing, and if this particular person had already been sitting, then he or she would surely crumple from his or her chair into the classic, albeit nostalgic, fetal position.

No! I will not degrade myself and deface what happiness I have managed to convince myself has melded into my existence for a gallon of milk—never!
To be more specific, which I suppose I will have to be in order to fulfill the task of making any kind of sense, I hate grocery stores the most, and it all starts in the parking lot, “it” being the hunt, or the mission, with objective.

Now enter into the vicinity, and commence the search for a parking space amid identical rows of other people’s vehicles. You circle, following the large painted arrows designed for helpful navigation, but the lot quickly morphs into a labyrinth of minivans and sedans, all of them leering at you from their snug compartments. You turn the corner and face another full line of cars, and that is when you scathingly realize that once again you have been left out of the loop! That somehow the memo—which names the time, place, and proper shopping list to all of the other middle-aged mothers and fathers—has escaped you yet again, and perhaps this is your punishment for not attending the neighborhood picnic last Saturday. You thought no one would notice your absence, but you were wrong, and you have been excommunicated! Now they all spite you from their reasonably close parking spaces, and send you to the back of the lot, next to some pick-up in which the owners have left their malicious little dog, who barks and snarls relentlessly at you through the driver’s side window. Secretly you hope the thing dies in there, as it will surely use up all the oxygen before its owners can get back.

You step out, and as you begin your solemn march toward the automatic sliding doors of hell, the toll of the inferno’s bells reaches your ears, not as a resounding and ominous gong as one might expect, but actually in a form much more menacing, promising more pain and annoyance, and most of all—guilt.
You walk closer, and the tinkling bell fills your ears. A woman in front of you has just sent her adorable children out like little shields, distracting the collector with dollars so that she can get by unharmed and with her dignity still intact. You, on the other hand, approach empty-handed, without any shields or sacrifices, and the bell’s high pitched ringing is like a torment.

Who solicits just outside of hell? Can’t the collector see that people bound in this direction are going to their dooms, and some of them would like to retain the comfort of whatever economic worth they have accumulated over their life spans instead of shipping it away? Or is he just very clever, knowing that perhaps, as they leave this earth, people will try and indeed want to give to the generation they are leaving behind?

But not today, as you have already been excommunicated by that evil organization of gossipy neighborhood housewives, and fear not the wrath of the ignored charity.

The noise of the bell—your death toll—ebbs away, replaced by the peeling away of doors only a second too late to be truly considered “automatic” or “convenient”. You stumble inside, setting 

your face, knowing that here is where the mission really begins—that you are now behind enemy lines.

Before you had a way out. You could still turn back, but not anymore, because the doors that open for traffic in the opposite direction are on the other side of the check-out lanes, and you are trapped, loathing the devious design and location of the exits.

This is a different world altogether than the parking lot, and here, rules do not apply.

You take the first step, gathering in your hands the un-sanitized reigns of the rickety chariot— with a wheel that pulls to the right—that will lead you down the rows to certain fetal regression…and here is where I find the first wave of despair surges over me. It is a difficult sensation to explain, one that creeps slowly over you as you navigate your way toward the first aisle. The field narrows, and claustrophobic episodes brought on by the towering, over-stocked walls eat away at any adrenaline you were lucky enough to come through the doors with. Any purpose you thought you retained is badly shaken by the early onslaught of mind-numbing tags and prices. The walls here are perfection, so that the colors and items meld into a blur that swirls about your peripherals.

Tunnel vision grips you, and you are lost, alone in a desolate, two-for-ten-dollars warzone.

Worst of all is coming across another lost member of the human race. Because they knew they too were going to this place of no return, they never bothered to present themselves. Or perhaps they have been wandering about, trapped and converted into the customary zombie, their pale faces and shabby wardrobe further sapping you of hope for your species.

They do not communicate, make eye contact, or attempt to think at all. You hurry by them with a new and sudden burst of determination. You must redeem humanity! Your chariot completes a wobbly turn, needing some extra force for that exasperating lazy-wheel, and suddenly the path finds your weary feet. You have found the way to The Gallon.

You pick up speed, headless of the zombies, because they are already dead and beyond saving, all of them clustering around a rim of free samples put out by the demon store clerks to further entice their residence in hell, but your tunnel vision does not allow you to be distracted. Using it now as a freak advantage, you rush on, the refrigerated section drawing ever nearer. You are almost happy, an emotion previously sucked out of you by the forces of the underworld, until you realize with a start that the meat counter is in front of you.

Do you know what they do behind the meat counter?

Have you ever looked?

It’s a blood bath back there, possibly more horrifying than the frozen food aisles—because who knows what someone put in those items to enable their sickly remarkable transformation from chunks of ice to supposedly edible food? Yes, the meat counter is even worse than that, and you are headed right for it. I always try to stay as far away as possible, because if I get too close, I’m risking a meltdown, and then the zombies could overtake me in my weakened state.
But really, there are pieces of bloody dead things on display! That piece there was part of a working body, maybe specifically aiding the process of digestion, and you are really going to walk up to the glass and say, “That looks delicious, I think I’ll take a pound of that, but first be sure to grind it up through that medieval torture device you have in the back that you grind everything else up in, even sometimes fingers. Yes, that will be all.”

You keep your eyes down, wondering how anyone could possibly be inspired by chunks of bloody meat, and try to keep going, but you find the meat counter has affected you, and your resolve is breaking. The zombies have gotten to you too, pity and disgrace sinking in deeper than you previously thought you were allowing. Your brain is turning into mush inside your skull due to neglect, the deterioration of your personality, sight, memory, creative abilities, and thought processes accelerating ferociously, another symptom of the underworld that you are powerless to stop. Even though you have surpassed the meat counter, it is only a small victory, and you experience a more violent shudder of despair.

You have reached a crucial point. The gas from breakfast has run out, and it’s still two hours until lunch—to put it metaphorically. More realistically, your brain is threatening sleep-mode just like all the other zombies in this cold, unimaginative circle of the underworld, with your will to survive slipping, the wheels of motivation screeching to a halt. The parking lot is just a blur, and beyond that, you cannot remember home, the world that has sent you thousands of levels down into this fearsome underbelly for some task, the gateway to nothingness worse than a fast food establishment, or even a dressing room.

Now, if you want it make it out of here alive, you have to find your focus. You must wrestle your cart slightly left in order for you to move forward, you must lock on to your own secret objective, and you must seize that gallon of milk which for some reason costs more than gas—which is saying something—toss it into your chariot, and wheel around, making your way through temples of Bounty paper towels to face your last obstacle…the checkout.

This place will not reward you for your fifty percent accomplishment, because the people here are realistic, and fifty percent on the standardized-scale-of-letter-grades-that-mysteriously-skips-the-letter-‘E’ is still an ‘F’. You have stilled failed your mission if you do not make it through the mechanical belt-driven lanes of checkout.

Luckily, checkout is like that one merciful extra credit question at the bottom of a particularly torturous Geometry exam that will allow you, because of its amazing and gracious simplicity, to earn at least two points over the total, sparing yourself the embarrassment of a complete zero. All you have to do is stand still and remain calm, and avoid at all costs the small talk the horned imps checking your prize will try to stir up with you.

It is, of course, all part of their attempt to keep you in the store so that hopefully they can break you, and achieve the desired state of brain mush needed to make you a zombie as well. Do not fall for it, although they might think you rude, they cannot touch you. No evil can override what has fallen onto your shoulders already. You wait, pay the bill with a credit card and money you don’t have, and then contemplate the choice that the demon will inevitably ask you:

Paper or plastic?

Who ever really knows?

You take your pick but make the decision quickly, because staying for much longer would surely mean disaster.

And then you leave the place of horror and cold realization through slightly late automatic doors, shuddering as you hear the distant screams of the death of imagination, thought, and the future of mankind, with your objective in your arm…but you are not okay, not restored. You have just witnessed again the deaths of the things you were unaware you loved unconditionally. You walk to your car at the back of the parking lot, the bell tolling not for you, but for the poor man who is now headed for torture and demise, and you cannot warn him…he wouldn’t believe you, and probably his wife is one of those that favored your excommunication.

You reach your car, and that little monster does not bark, only looks at you mournfully through the glass. You wonder if he knows his owners will never come back, having been converted into zombies and are probably too busy munching on free samples of rubber cheese balls to even think about their dog and his fate, to be lost forever on the desolate outskirts of an institution of placid evil. You know you cannot save him, either, and climb into your car and turn the key, trying not to think about what you are going back to, which is the life that you have fallen into, which is also unfortunate.

I cannot gain back what I have lost inside a grocery store. They are dangerous places for any sense of self, void of things essential for my falsely happy existence, for the existence of us all. However, not everyone is aware of this danger, or the loss that comes with it, and for that reason create a weekly list and head off toward the nearest supermarket, revving up for sleep-mode. Some have gotten so accustomed to it they are in denial and no longer feel threatened, walking boldly through the doors and out again, thinking they have gained.

Is it so sadistically wrong to even think this way? Is it so impossible to understand the irrationality that I have so impossibly created…to have given up hope, to become unnatural? What am I trying to send, a message? A warning? And yet still, I wish more than anyone that I could be as blissfully unaware…

But I am aware, and I fear so much to lose the last of my reserves that it is a phobia.

A/N: Please Review!