The Excursion

Yesterday morning, I found myself tucked into the back of a car with two priests on our way to a supercenter for some shopping. We met the cook there. Some of the highlights:

- After we arrived, I took off on my own and finished my part of the shopping for my munchkins within 10 minutes. I spent the next 2 hours standing with the carts and generally shaking my head at the antics I was witnessing.
- Why the second priest came along was not evident to any of us except himself. When the cook tried to shove a piece of meat into the cart that was longer than the cart itself, he helped by throwing his one acquisition, a pair of pants, on top of the meat. (As a sidebar, I don't understand the lure of stores where you can buy meat the length of a cow and cotton pants two aisles away from each other.)
- Most often it was him and me staying with the carts in the middle of the meat section while the cook and the first priest went looking for and fighting over purchases. He asked me where he could get some VHS tapes. I told him to try the store we were in, and he insisted they didn't sell them. I suggested Walmart, told him exactly where it was and how to get there from the parish including public transit and driving instructions. On the way back he rode with the cook; he insulted the cleanliness of her car and then asked her where he could find a Walmart. She dropped him off at a Best Buy instead where he grumbled about not getting a good deal.
- The second priest asked me at one point, "What do you call that egg substitute stuff?" I looked at him and paused before articulating very clearly, "Egg substitute." I eventually offered him a brand name to look for yet he returned to the carts empty handed.
- Watching the three others choose an item, debate, fight and then put the item away was fairly amusing; a bag of oranges, for instance, would land in the cart via the cook. The bag of oranges would then be removed by one priest, who doesn't like oranges. The second priest would ask, "Why can't I have the oranges?" The oranges would return to the cart once again.
- I happened to choose a cart with a wonky wheel. By the time I had loaded it up with soda, I could barely move it, and I certainly could not steer it. I told this to one priest, who insisted on his mass quantities of bread not getting squished, so he kept adding heavy items that might squish his bread to my cart. Frustrated, I explained I could barely move it before and said, "You push it." He started to, and ended up pretty much parallel with the floor trying to shift it. He turned around after a few steps and said, "Too heavy. You push it." I laughed and just stood there until the second priest called us both a couple of wusses and he tried to push it. He could get it to move but couldn't steer, so he assigned me to the front of the cart and started yelling, "A droit!" "A gauche!" too loudly as I steered and he pushed. What a sight I'm sure we were.

$800 and 2.5 hours later, I will make sure I arrange to go shopping with only the pastor next time. Why only him? He has a credit card and moves the fastest.