Condiment aisle

After a span of hours so unremarkable she could cry, Sam had found herself standing in the condiment aisle of a grocery store. She was a prisoner, surrounded by row after claustrophobic row of perfectly placed products, with perfectly designed packaging, lit by perfectly placed spotlights, mocking her, daring her to try to buy something amidst so much choice. She had already battled the toilet paper, scanning 15 different brands, ply, roll size, scent and quantity, squinting at the faded labels to try to divide the cost by number of rolls then sheets then wipes. Her days were filled like this: trying to make a simple decision while under attack by shifting priorities, chameleon demands of each family member and the panicked desire to escape the store as quickly as possible in order to get to the next monotonous life task on a list that scrolled constantly, endlessly through her mind.

A petite blonde woman pushed her grocery cart around Sam and stopped a few steps away to review the selection of mustards. The woman stepped back to take in the offerings across the eight levels of shelves, then sifted through a colorful thick plastic envelope with dividers, pulling out coupons for review. Her head nodded up and down as she looked up and the shelf then down at another coupon. She squinted at the concave pricing labels askew along the edge of each shelf. She squinted at the coupon. She squinted at the digital coupons on her phone. Up, down, up, down like a mating dance of some fantastically rare and peculiar bird. Her eyebrows popped up in surprise; she found a match. She reached up to pull a plastic yellow squeeze-bottle down from the top shelf and reviewed the ingredients. She frowned in disappointment and selected another mustard bottle, and then another, and another, until she found one that met her dietary requirements. Then she began shifting through her perfectly-clipped coupons again, looking for a match. After seven minutes, she left the aisle with no mustard at all.

Sam turned and faced the pickle jars. There they sat, squatting there on the shelf, not giving a fuck if she picked one up. They were over-sized and fat, resources wasted on the thick, ridged glass, painted metal lid, and a plastic-coated, four-color label. The lumpy, dark green pickles stood erect inside each bottle, staring out like mini-embalmed crocodiles, packed so tight they could hardly move. Momma Smith’s Pickles was the brand her father-in-law preferred. He ate them with every meal and in a steady flow most of the minutes in between. Sam picked up a jar. It was heavy and too wide to fit comfortably in one hand. She imagined it slipping from her grasp and smashing onto the floor. Seeds, juices and pickle entrails would burst in a yellow-greenish wave. Glass shards would charge through the air, spearing a nearby bag of pretzels. The pickles, 12 crooked troll penises, would tumble end over end across the gold flecked tiled floor. Fuzzy strands of dill would lay deflated and lifeless in shallow juice. The lid would roll drunkenly down the aisle, landing somewhere between the ramen noodles and organic salsa with a loud, dramatic spin, and punctuate the entire event.

It hit Sam so clearly it was like seeing the world for the first time. How ridiculous to be here, in this aisle, at this store, on this day, spending her precious time looking at pickles. There must be thousands—millions!—of more meaningful things she could be doing. She thought about the mustard woman, three aisles over intensely focused on finding a good deal in the personal care section, and felt a kinship, a solidarity. She, too, must have expected more from her life.

An unfamiliar feeling of rebellion shot through Sam, a rush of fuck-this, who-cares, watch-me. She let the pickle jar, which had settled snugly against her palm, fall from her hand. Momma Smith’s smiling face spinning gracefully upside down, the muffled, salty screams of extra-wide dills, unable to brace themselves for impact. It was reckless, irresponsible and infantile for her to intentionally drop the jar—and yet so deeply satisfying it was borderline orgasmic. She left the store, without any pickles, without any groceries at all.

~ Excerpt from the novel Wanderness (unpublished)