Chunky and the Cukes

Se we ran into the grocery store for a gallon of milk and a few other things. I was walking with the boys, one on each hand while Mom had the baby in a shopping cart and was doing the real work. And that’s when I witnessed it, something truly gross.

Believe me when I tell you, I have a cast iron stomach most of the time. It is fairly difficult to gross me out. I can handle a lot. But some things are just…unecessary. I will set the scene.

Two oversized girls. Very oversized. One with the undersized hoodie and jeans on a butt so large it is collapsing back in on itself in a sort of unholy flattening. The other was a sassy chunker. She had a shearling lined suede coat that affected a look of trim tailoring, though it did more of a Hindenburg than an hourglass. She was overly made up and walked with a hand up, pinky out. Like Nathan Lane in the Bird Cage pretending to be feminine. Very much like that.

Anyway, Large Subject A, in the hoodie, was talking on her cell phone, a bit over enthusiastic for the Stop and Shop produce section. She was handling the cucumbers, perhaps looking for just the right one. She was also leaning over the cucumbers. Leaning against them, or even into them, really. So much so that when she drew back, her belly pulled a half dozen off the pile. They fell, unnoticed, to the floor.

So the cell phone call is getting heated and there seems to be some big flirting going on (no pun intended that time) judging by the volume and cucumber proximity. Then she did it. She took the two cucumbers she held in one meaty fist and put them under her arm. Right in the stinky pit, like a Hogan’s Heroes Nazi with a riding crop. She switched phone hands, wrote something down, giggled with her friend, and then de-pitted the cukes and returned them to the pile.

Back into the fray, my friends. From that clammy spot under the (larger than my thigh) arm, and right back to the pile. Yummy yummy yummy.

Now I’m trying not to sound reactionary here. I know most people are going to peel their cucumbers. And anyway, they’re so over waxed by the factory farmers that it’s like a Yankee Candle unscented veggie force field. And I know that’s not like they were Avo Cigars or unwrapped bendy straws or whatever, but its a grocery store, not your kitchen with the fridge door hanging open. Can I please appeal to the better taste of all people, large and small, short and tall – please please please do not carry the produce in your armpit. It’s just not right.