***It’s National Delurking Day today. So come out, come out where ever you are. Don’t be shy. I won’t bite. Unless you ask me to…***

If there is one thing I hate more than cooking, giving head and stepping in dog shit, it would be grocery shopping. I can’t think of a worse form of torture for a Tuesday morning than having to wander the aisles of some vast Super-Discount-Vapid-Employees-Cheap-Produce store to squeeze tomatoes.

I have been known to let my children go hungry rather than forage for food at the local supermarket.

I think it all has to do with the time I was four and I ran away from my mother in a seemingly large grocery store and ran up and down the aisles, like the smart ass kid I was until I realized I couldn’t find her and suddenly had a panic attack to beat a panic attack and sat down in the middle of the aisle, wailing “Mommmmmmeeeee!”

She never came.

Apparently, she heard my cries, took one look at my snotty nose and scrunched up face and decided it would be of some benefit to me to wait until she finished up in the bakery department before retrieving me.

Meanwhile, store employees formed a circle around me, poking me with broom handles while hissing.

Really. That’s what I remember.

Since that day I loathe the grocery shopping experience. There is something about Walmart and the mega stores which suck out all the life blood and vibrancy of shoppers and turn them into irritating, mindless, vacant-eyed ghouls who continually ram their carts into the back of my heels.

Fackers.

My best friend knows this about me. She has seen my empty pantry and witnessed my children foraging for berries when I’ve been too lazy struck with fear to face my grocery store demons. And because she cares about my family and the well being of my very cute and charming children, she has taken it upon herself to pick me up every week and hustle my sorry ass to the nearest grocery store.

Picture her stuffing me into her minivan with the sharp end of windshield scraper thingy while I’m cussing and screaming at her. Happens every Tuesday. With her three very young children in the back, staring at me wide eyed and agog and wondering what the hell they did to deserve being saddled with a batshit crazy aunt.

After a particularly noxious shopping experience where I was stuck pushing the cart holding her decidedly gassy and stinky two year old, I decided to take my joy where I could find it in the vast wasteland of consumerism. Have some fun with my very uptight and rigid friend. In other words, torment her like the constant farting of her daughter was tormenting my sensitive olfactory nerve.

As we steered our carts holding precious food supplies and small children (all of her kids are under the age of four) we split up and took different check out aisles. Her on one side, her farting child and me on the other. As luck would have it (because the Grocery Store Gods facking hate me) I was stuck in the line not moving. While her child happily tooted away and kept smacking me in my boob.

I figured I could do one of two things: Feel sorry for myself for my lousy line picking skills or have a little fun at my prim and proper friend’s expense, who was already at the check out kiosk on the other side of the stand.

Guess which road I took? Hint, it wouldn’t be considered the high road.

Grabbing a box of Durex condoms, (God love Walmart for all the crap they bombard you with in the check out aisle) I stood on my tippy toes, waving the box and in my OUTSIDE voice sweetly yelled called “Hey D, they’ve got those extra small condoms you were looking for, you know the RIBBED ones for your pleasure, over here. You want a box?”

The ladies in front of me didn’t think I was so funny. They must know my mom. But the men behind us, in both lines, tittered and watched my friend for her reaction.

She was mortified and red and couldn’t muster an answer except to shoot me the ole “Fuck off and Die” look, (which I’m rather impervious to.) She looked at the man standing behind her in line and then looked at me and shook her head.

Never one to leave things alone, I called out, “Did you get a price check on that KY jelly…you know the kind that heats up? I want to know if that super big bottle you bought is cheaper than the regular size bottle?”

Meanwhile, my line has slowly crept up so I’m opposite her now, with only the cashier between us to protect me from her reaching over and wringing my neck.

Again my friend looks at the man behind her in line (who was now leering openly) and then shot me a look. To her credit, she muttered a comeback. Not a good one, but then she’s not accustomed to some lunatic screeching out her (fictional) private business in the middle of a packed Walmart where she now has about thirty people wondering just how small her husband’s penis really is and what kind of proclivities does one need to use a super sized bottle of heat lube.

As she ushered past me, still stuck in line waiting to be rung out, she hissed something about killing me and then she beat a hasty retreat.

The only thing keeping her from dumping my embarrassing ass and peeling out of the parking lot with out me was I was now holding her flatulent daughter as hostage in my cart. Heh, heh.

Vowing to make it up to her and spring for coffee, (cuz I’m thoughtful like that) I paid for my groceries and started shoving her daughter’s two year old arms into her coat, when the creepy dude who stood behind my friend approached me.

Handing me his business card, he said to me, “Anytime either…or both…of you ladies would like to go out, you just give me a call, sweets.” Then he doffed his greasy ball cap and sauntered off.

I stood there dumbfounded for a moment and a little queered out and then looked at the card he stuffed in my hand.

G-Spot Welding, it read, with the tag line, “Cuz we’re just that good.” On the back he had scribbled, ‘I’m always up to use some lube with a pretty lady. I’ll even provide my own.’

That’ll teach me. Next time I’ll keep my mouth shut.

Or stick to teasing her about tampons.