I'm not a professional, but I know crazy when I smell it.

The other day out of sheer desperation, Dave and I decided to go shopping to the two worst places in the area for attracting annoying people with too much time on their hands - the supermarket and the dollar store.  We decided to go out of town, simply because we are losing our fucking minds due to Winter.  The snow has kept us close to home, and so we've been forced to shop locally, which is similar to foraging during a zombie apocalypse and with similar results.  Since we were able to get out of our driveway, we thought it would be nice to get out of town and go somewhere where they had meat and maybe even still crispy vegetables.

Our day started out with a bad smell.  At the dollar store, an old man farted and then quickly walked away leaving us in the wake of the most horrible smell.  It lingered so long we were both convinced that it had seeped into our clothing and so that explained the nasty glances we were getting from the other customers.   Later I saw the man again, and this time he was looking at small wooden boxes.  I wanted to look at the small wooden boxes too, but he was making himself big and not allowing me to get close to the display.  (Obviously this guy's motto is "Go big or go home.")   I tried a few times to get close enough to look, and each time he grew bigger and more intrusive and grosser and more disgusting until no box, not even a solid gold with diamond trim box was worth this. So I left him alone with his disgusting bodily odors and a bunch of cheap wooden boxes.  Enjoy.

Next we went to the supermarket where Dave was able to finally witness The Woman Who Studies Meat doing her thing.  She is like the  Meat Whisperer FULL STORY HERE, only crazier.  She picks up a package of , say ground beef, and brings it very close to her eyes and stares at it for a few moments.  Then she turns it around  to look at it from another angle and stares at it again.  I think she is trying to become one with the meat, but don't hold me to this because I am not an expert.  I just play one on the internet.  I fucked with her a bit, getting dangerously close to meat she had her eye on, but then felt a little guilty doing this, so I just grabbed up some meat she hadn't touched too much and moved on down another aisle.  By this time Dave was both amused and terrified but I shrugged it off, as it was, of course, all in a day's work for me.  If you've seen one meat whisperer, or meat mind-melder, you've seen them all, quite frankly.  No big deal.

While we were at it, though, I decided to take this opportunity to teach Dave a few tricks of the trade when shopping amongst those who are afraid that there will not be enough anything to go around, aka old people.  I taught him not to talk aloud regarding what you are shopping for,  or ask where something is, because that is like sending a really loud signal to all old people that you want something that may be good, and that there might be a shortage of, and if there is a shortage, they will buy at least 10 of whatever it is, even if they do not need it, or even if they don't know what it is.  Rule Number One: If you want it - they want it and need more of it.

So I said to him in the softest voice "I'm looking for tea." and then put my finger to my lips.  He nodded in a partner-in-crime way.  Then we read the signs to find out which aisle the "you know what" was in. When I spotted it, I taught him the "No Crowd" rule.  Never attract people to your desired product by creating a crowd.  NOTE:  To old people, a crowd is any more than one person.

So I told Dave to walk a good half aisle behind me and let me go to the tea section alone - and do not talk about tea while I'm there or otherwise attract any attention to the Mighty Leaf Brand I was interested in.  He did, and while he did I tiptoed down the aisle and then made myself quite big in front of the display (something that gets easier with practice) and although I did see some elderly looking my way, I made off with the tea before they had time to search for their coupons. I met up with him, we high fived and I could tell  he was obviously in awe of my immense genious in these matters.  Yeah, well, I guess I am pretty good at this shit, after all.

And that was enough for one day.  Thank god the woman who barges into my house waited until today to do the barging.  Details to come.