Supermarket voyeur

What people put into their shopping carts has always held some fascination for me. I consider myself to be a bit of a supermarket voyeur. I’m constantly checking out the contents of other shoppers’ carts.

Last Friday night I found myself in the checkout line with some real party animals and one truly odd shopper. 

The gals at the front of the line were two tattooed, Rubenesque twenty‑somethings. Both were employing the use of their cell phones as they unloaded the contents of their cart: one bottle of Bacardi, a six‑pack of coke, a bottle of Smirnoff vodka, a gallon of orange juice, along with bags of Cheetos, Doritos and fried pork rinds. These two were in for night of healthy dining, no doubt about it. At least they didn’t leave anything about their evening to my imagination.

I can’t say the same for our next shopper.

The man directly in front of me had perhaps the most bizarre combination of grocery store items I have ever seen–a mysterious melange of four four‑packs of tuna fish, two tins of sardines, two twelve‑packs of Diet Coke, and two packages of assorted cheese pre‑cut to fit on crackers, presumably on Ritz crackers as the plastic packaging indicated.

What on earth was this guy going to do with so much canned fish and 88 square pieces of cheese? And why did he need them at 9 p.m. on a Friday night? There were no crackers in his line‑up, so I presumed he harbored the Ritz in his pantry already. A friend proffered that perhaps the tuna and sardines were on sale or that maybe this guy, who wasn’t exactly in marathon condition, was ratcheting up for some new, fad diet filled exclusively with canned fish and square cheese. That would explain the presence of Diet Coke. But I wasn’t buying it. More likely he belonged to some Sedona‑based cult and was simply storing goods for the next day’s arrival of Armageddon.

Tinned‑fish man took his own sweet time paying the cashier, so I began chatting with the two young men in line behind me. They both had a tough took about them: low‑slung baggy pants, tight white sleeveless undershirts with tattoos peeking out of the armholes, and each wore a thick gold chain on which hung a crucifix the size of a kiwi fruit.

Their haul wasn’t mysterious at all and in fact made me long a bit for my carefree college days when money was better spent on booze than on nutritious or gourmet food. Because there was little room left on the belt, one (who I learned wrote Haiku) cradled in his arms 12 Totinos Party Pizzas (a guilty pleasure of mine since my teens). The other was somehow balancing a 12‑pack of Budweiser, a large bottle Arrogant Bastard Ale, a pint of Sauza tequila, and a bag of limes swung from his crooked pinky finger.

My curiosity got the better of me.

“It’s obvious that one of you has good taste,” I said, pointing to the Arrogant Bastard, “so how do you explain the Bud and the Totino’s Party Pizzas?”

As I expected, they explained it was all about economy. For the price of one great beer, you can get a 12‑pack of swill. For less than the price of one large take‑out pizza, you can take home 12 Totinos.

“Hey,” said beer holder, “they don’t call them party pizzas for nothing, you know. Besides, what’s a smart‑looking lady like you doing with a Cosmopolitan?” he asked, nodding toward my other guilty pleasure, a trashy women’s magazine known for regurgitating the same sex articles month after month.

Caught at my own game, I was a bit flushed, especially after taking stock of my own odd assortment of items: a package of chicken livers, a bottle of Knob Creek, a container of Similac infant formula, and the Cosmo with a big fat headline “Sexpose: 10 Things Guys Crave In Bed.”

“I’m a writer, and ... ” I explained, then stumbled toward the rest of my sentence.

“So, it’s research?” Totino guy offered. “You write trashy romances.”

“No, actually I write about food.”

“Well, I can tell you two things guys don’t crave in bed, chicken livers and formula.”

After an awkward silence, it was my turn at the cashier. And later in bed, snuggled up with my Cosmo, I realized that Totino guy had a good point. Sure enough, chicken livers and formula had not made Cosmo’s top ten list.

Contact Lupita at foodamericana@msn.com.