Once At The Grocery Store

Once, at the grocery store, I fell into a cake. It seems like the kind of thing that only happens in cartoons, but it also happened to me in the bakery section. My father and I were waiting in the deli line, which is the absolute worst line to be in when you’re eight.

Other lines like the checkout line have stuff. Stuff like brightly-wrapped candy bars or the rolled-up horoscope scrolls to admire. Good stuff. Even the pharmacy line has the blood pressure machine to try and stick my head in. But the deli line has nothing, nothing at all. Death. Death. Death. It’s a dreadful place of rye bread and salami and old people. Old people love the deli line.

I loved to accompany my father to the grocery store. He was a soft sell for candy bars and magazines. And the grocery store was inherently fun. There were aisles of open space to race through on the shopping cart. There was the little sprinkler system that rained over the vegetables. Before it came on, the lights flickered and a thunderstorm sound effect rumbled. Oh, the drama.

I wanted to run to the cucumbers and stick my hands under that mist. I wanted to race through the store and touch everything. I wanted a quarter for the toy machine with the chicken that dispenses plastic eggs. I wanted to roll on the floor in the bread aisle. I don’t know why. It just felt right. I wanted hot dogs. I wanted Ho Ho’s. I wanted to know what song was playing. Do you know it, Dad? Do you? Do you? I wanted to pluck the tiny red tomatoes from the salad bar into my mouth. Want want want. Pluck pluck.

But now we were in the deli line, which was also always the longest line. The bakery was nearby, further down and still within sight.

“Could I look at the cakes? Could I? Please?” I asked. He nodded. My father didn’t have OCD if I wandered a few feet away.

The bakery had multiple sheet cakes in the display case. Birthday cake. I wanted it. There was a circus-themed cake with plastic balloon toppers and a little clown figurine. Clowns were dumb, but I’d take it. There was a truck-themed cake with a digging truck and rocks. A little butch for my tastes, but I’d take it. There was a dinosaur-themed cake with a Stegosaurus, a Triceratops, and a Tyrannosaurus Rex, about to rip all their heads off. Sweet Jesus, I’d definitely take it.

I pretended to be a Triceratops grazing on the green frosting. I wanted to stare into the dinosaurs, eternally. I licked my lips and gazed deeply, longingly into the cake. I had a certain look, a technique, really. I imagined somewhere an old lady would see me, this cake, and my eyes. “Oh my god,” she would exclaim, seeing that I was clearly famished. My parents had only given me one bowl of cereal for breakfast. “Won’t somebody give this starving child this cake?”

I wanted to lick the glass of the display case discreetly. Just a taste. I imagined the residue of dried sugar on the glass. Only a taste, nothing more. I looked over to my father, who still waited in the deli line. Glazed turkey breast sure took forever. I put my hands out to touch the glass, to lean in.

Except there was no glass. The display case was completely open. I’m not sure how I missed this. I fell into the dinosaurs’ habitat, hands first. My fingers squished into the cake, chocolate. This was bad. REALLY BAD. I had broken one of the sacramental Never Touch Rules. Every kid knows never to touch things that are on display, things in china cabinets, or things in potpourri burners.

I pulled myself out of the cake. I looked at my hands in disbelief. What have I wrought? My eyes darted back to the deli to see if my father had seen anything. He had. My father may not have had OCD, but he definitely had ESP, and his eyes had already turned to fireballs. Quickly, I considered licking my fingers. This was perfectly good cake, chocolate. And then again, here was my father charging toward me.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” He grabbed my cakey hand, and we bolted away from the crime scene. He was walking so fast, I was actually flying behind him in his wind. My feet left the ground. It seems like the kind of thing that only happens in cartoons, but it happened to me once, at the grocery store.

We zipped past the deli line, the turkey breast forgotten. We even abandoned the shopping cart. That never happened before.

“Pick up your feet. We have to get out of here. I’m not paying for that cake you ruined.” He looked over his shoulder. Was the chef chasing after us? I looked, too.

Past the check out line, past the candy bars, past the egg dispensing chicken machine. Sigh. The doors slid open for us. We made it to the parking lot where my father caught his breath. Maybe the parking lot was like Home Base. If the chef came out, we’d just yell “Safe” and we’d be immune.

My father lit a cigarette and looked at my hands.

“Jesus. Wipe off your hands, kid.”

“On what?” I had nothing, and neither did he. I wanted Mom. She kept tissues on hand for things like frosting and snot and blood.

“Just use your jeans. What were you doing?”

How could I explain it? The old “I Didn’t Realize The Glass Was Missing” Defense? Wouldn’t fly. I tried it anyway.

“The glass was missing.”

My father rolled his eyes. Yep. Didn’t fly.

“Now we have to drive to the other grocery store. Your mother wanted that turkey breast for her lunches, and I ain’t going back in there.”

He didn’t say another word about it. My guilt was punishment enough. I had too much respect for cakes to mess them up. Cake was holy, reverential.

We loaded into the car. I liked when it was just me and him because I got to sit in the front seat. He turned up 104.3 The Colt, the classic rock station he always played in his car. I looked out the window. Everything looked better in the front seat.

I just hoped the other grocery store had a toy machine with the chicken.