The Bad, the Worse, and the Wine Aisle

Not to toot my own horn, but I've become pretty skilled at sniffing out the baby free zone on Breeders' Day Out.  I know, I'm pretty amazing.  Please, Please, no applause is necessary.  There is a subtle trick that needs to be done before this honing skill kicks in.  It's the lovely duo of sweat and crazy-eyed panic!  Here's one outing in particular that show's my skill. 

One day I awoke to oddly rested and without the always shocking knowledge of some Ambien eating that occurred mid-night.  Today I was going to be productive.  Yes, productive!  When my husband came home, the house would be clean, groceries put away, and an amazing meal ready and waiting!  What a day of virtue this would be! 

Everything started off well, the house got cleaned in less time than it usually takes and I only thought about burning it down once.  I had even remembered to eat lunch. Virtue I say! 

And so it was time to leave the house.  Three stops, placed very close together.  Salon Source (a beauty supply store for cosmetologists), Cost Co, and Meijer.  This wouldn't be bad at all.  Maybe I'd treat myself to a new nail color while I was there, something feisty like "I'm not your bitch pink" or "I look good in hooker red". 

Salon Source began well enough.  I worked my way back to the Redkin color rack and studied the colors when I overheard this conversation:
"Oh Sara you look so cute!  How far along are you now?" the clerk asked
"7 months.  It's hell.  I can't sleep and this kid won't stop moving.  But Tyler here is excited to have another sibling." Sara whined
"How old are you now Tyler?" the clerk with sacrine sweetness.
"Two" he babbled
"I see your pregnant too.  Let's compare belly sizes so that girl with the reddening face and bulging eyes head might pop off."

Okay so maybe the conversation didn't go just like that but it was fairly close minus their malice.  But I stood in the back of that store with little to no cover, grasping some hair product like a talisman and shook.  I knew a full fledged panic attack was on the way.  I felt it suck away my breath and crush my chest.  I couldn't draw in breath, relief, nothing.  The icy sweat pearled up on my forehead and down my back.  My body burned with heat that wouldn't release into the air.  I felt rooted to the ground.

I finally choked in a breath, it made an awful noise but I felt suddenly able to move.  I threw down what ever I had been holding and ran to my car at full speed.  Once in the car I gripped my steering wheal as though I was going to rip it off and wailed like a banshie.  After my voice grew horse, I realized the window was down.  Sonofabitch. Pulling myself together, though my head throbbed, I quietly started the car, adjusted the mirror and drove the short ways to Cost Co.

Once entering the store I knew this was going to be as big of a disaster as the supply store but I couldn't flake out.  We needed toilet paper, kitty litter, and  Matt needed Prilosec.  I could do this, I had to do this.  And then I had a great idea and that idea was the wonderfulness of Ativan.  Yes, my sweet, sweet Ativan.  I almost never need it but when I do, I don't hesitate.  I'm not one to get loopy on meds, sadly.  I never felt high or whatever when I was on Vicodin.  It just helped the pain and so would the Ativan.  I looked through my messenger bag and nearly roared when I came up empty. 

I could do this.  Just get what I need and get the hell out.  My list of items became a lunatic's mantra.  TP, litter, Prilosec I would chant in my head over and over as cherub cheeked baby's slept in their carriers or blew snot bubbles.  The toddlers teetered along next to their parent in their silly drunk walk.  TP, litter, Prilosec.  The heat flushed and I began to move a little faster than socially acceptable and received many a glare from employees and I'm pretty sure I caught a gnarled middle finger from some pissed senior citizen.  Fuck it.  I got what I needed as my hands shook so bad it look like I was going through the DT's and sweat dripped down my spine and between my breasts.  All I could think about was the safety of home but it was just one more place and I wouldn't have time to go for another week!

As I got back into the car, I continued to waffle over the grocery store, easily the worst errand on the best of days.  I had to go.  Maybe I could treat myself to something.  Yes, a treat!  Something from the bakery!  A doughnut or two!  Yes!  And so I drove towards the mecca of misery.  Meijer.

When I entered those automatic doors and gathered my cart I knew I had made the wrong decision.  A young mother was strapping in a plump little boy wearing a Detroit Tigers jersey.  He looked like what I imagined our child would look like.  Olive skin, my husbands thick dark hair and chocolate eyes, my nose, and his daddy's thumb-print chin.  My stomach suddenly clenched and my eyes pricked with the tears I held back.  I made a bee line for the bakery and selected three doughnuts without much joy.  I wanted to throw something.  My teeth clenched to the point of pain.

I continued on grabbing shortbread cookies and Nutella as I roamed.  Neither item was on my list but I couldn't seem to recall any thing that was on the list. 

Everywhere I looked, everywhere, there was someone pregnant, a new born or a toddler.  I hurt.  The knot in my stomach tightened.  I gasped.  I needed to find a safe place to have the breakdown that was surely coming.  With my cart acting like Mose's staff the people parted for this crazy person.  I found myself in the wine aisle!  Yes!  A breeder free zone had been found.  I stood up.  I smiled in pride and promptly balled all over my Lorna Dune's cookies. 

My fingers fumbled over the cheery yellow box grabbing at the cookies and shoveling them into my mouth.  My eyes fell on the tub of Nutella next and I ripped into it and dunked my cookies into its creamy goodness.  I continued stuffing my mouth with the cookies and Nutella.  I thick cement like past formed in my mouth and I could barely swallow.  I stood there masticating like a cow, the tears thinning to a slower trickle now.  I couldn't really sob with how full my mouth was.  My nose ran incessantly offering no mercy to an already beaten appearance.

I looked up to see a stock boy standing a little way down the aisle.  He stood frozen as though he didn't want to frighten the beast.  You could see he wanted to say or ask something but just didn't know what. 

"I've had a bad day." The words were so garbled that they were incoherent.  I sighed and it sprayed some cookie matter all over my bag.  I worked on swallowing the rest of the paste and then I looked at my haven and smiled.  Wine.  My soul sighed a little in relief.  I began grabbing up bottles.  I didn't know what half of them were, all I knew is that I need them. 

I resigned myself to the fact that this was a mistake but I had to pay for the cookies and Nutella so I had to conquor the check out.  Taking deep prepitory breathes I gripped the cart and charged!  I actually saw people grabbing up their children out of the way like that lone child who's almost going to get trampled by the on coming horses in Western's.  People leaped away from me and my battering ram of a cart. I would take no prisoners on this day.  The week would fall in my wake.

The cashier didn't speak to me.  He didn't mention the opened cookies or Nutella or the $300 worth of wine I had just purchased.  He just stared at my chocolate smeared face and red, puffy eyes.  At that point, really, what is there to say? 

I loaded my car up and drew out a bottle of wine.  I clutched it close as I sat in my now hot car.  I just held it.  I  rested my cheek upon the cap and I cried.  I cried all the way home.  I left the car in the driveway and all its newly acquired contents and lay out on the couch.  I cried until I had nothing left in me except for a whole lot of hurt.  Every inch of me felt raw.  I wasn't just in pain, I felt I was pain, that that is all I was.  That was my existence in those moments.  I had nothing of me left.  Just pain. Virtue could kiss my ass.

I hate those moments.  Perspective and rationality don't exists.  Joy doesn't exists.  You're almost catatonic in your grief.  Slowly reason comes back like a balm but with it it brings shame for your behavior.  Then you find the light spots like being thrilled you didn't vomit in the store let alone choke on rich confections.  It's a bit like reliving the oh what did I do last night when I was piss drunk?  Eventually some humor comes back as long as you didn't hurt anyone. 

I wish I could say that this was my last major moment like this but those other have yet to become amusing.  Now their at the simply pathetic stage.

Welcom to Hell! A short conversation with Satan and his attentive staff

"Hello!  Hello! Welcome to Hell you naughty, naughty humans! I am Beelzebub and I will be your tour guide.  Just think of me as your one man party coordinator."  He says with a shoulder shimmy.

"Is there actually going to be a party" a doughy man squeaked.

"Oh, yes there's always a little mixer for the newbies and it's pure Hell.  You see what I just did there?"  He giggled.  "You may not have the greatest time since we have a batch up pedophiles coming in in about an hour and with that baby face of yours... well, let's just say keep your back to the wall sweetie." Beelzebub winked.  The doughy man swallowed hard.

Mae was still in shock.  Mae had all her senses, she had a heart beat for Pete's sake!  She was alive, and she was a good person, not like the guy next to her that she recognized from all the Enron coverage.  She wanted to raise her hand but was afraid she'd to draw attention to herself and so she sat quietly on polished brimstone chairs with her legs crossed at the ankle and her hands folded properly in her lap, the perfect church lady pose.  All she wanted to do was run screaming around the oddly appointed conference room in which a clock ticked loudly but the time never advanced.  She wanted to kick and claw at the walls and find away out.  She didn't belong here and her heart rate accelerated to the point where it sounded over the whir of the historical slide show Beelzebub was showing.  He shot her an irritated look as if her could hear that loud beating tattoo.  She shot a nasty look right back not thinking about possible consequences but he wasn't very tall, in fact he was rather slight.  She bet she could take him unless he has evil, hellish super powers.  He probably does, you don't get to be Satan's right hand man without having a few moves.

"Now, under your seats there will be a little welcome goody bag together for each of you.  Something to help you on you transition." He smiled brightly.  His teeth looked sharp.

"Um, Sir, there is nothing under my chair."  Mae said, trying hard to keep her voice strong in clear even though she felt like vomiting all over the expensive looking rug that lay beneath her feet.

"Oh, Mae dear, I'll have yours once you're done with the big man.  He wants a special word with you." He winked.

Mae choked on her response as darkness enveloped her, thrusting her into torrential winds.  Suddenly she sat in a very bright, posh office complete with power desk and vanity wall.

"Mae! How lovely to see you?"  Satan's voice was high and nasally.  He had a stout little frame and Mae couldn't help but think he looked like Jason Allexander.

"No horns." Mae blurted.  Great final epitaph Mae, she chided herself.

"'Nah, they're mostly to scare people but I figure you're scared enough and this really isn't damnation situation for you so much as well, an errand, I suppose."  He pulled out a large box from a drawer in his lacquered desk.

"An errand?" Mae raised an incredulous brow.  She tried to keep up strong offhanded tones but she quickly ruined it all with a, "What?"  Confusion twisted her face like panties in a heatwave.

"I have your medications here and all your instructions.  Will you need injection training?  Beelzebub is one of the best, living or dead.  All those years dealing with junkies you know."  He said flippantly.

Mae was stupefied.  What the hell was going on here?  Was she high and this was some drug induced hallucination?  No, she would have to actually use drugs for that to be an option.  Mae then recognized the label on the box.  It was from the specialty pharmacy that she had to use to get her medications for the upcoming fertility treatments.  Fuck.  Mae shook her head to clear it, and wondered why she was even surprised and then she realized she hadn't answered Satan's query and she doubted he was used to waiting.  "No, I'm good.  I would just like to get going."

"I'm sure.  I bet this is a little overwhelming for you." He waved a stubby fingered hand to encompass the surroundings, "It seems to be for the others.  You have been quite calm."  He studied her like he was looking for the finest cut of meat as and then opened a drawer in his impressive desk pulling out a bottle of Evian and sipped.  He saw her looking and said, "Gotta stay hydrated down here.  It's damn hot!"  He hooted.  "The puns never get old."

"Will I have to come back here?"  Mae asked.
"No, but you will feel this place with you more strongly than before.  It could consume you, it frequently does."  He was so serious that chills ran up her spine.  "You will however have to call your specialist office and let them know you have your meds.  We aren't affiliated with your doctors office but I do believe we have a close relationship with your insurance carrier."  He dragged a stubby finger down a list.  "And HSA, correct?"

"Yes."

"Ah, here it is Priority Health HSA, known here as You Are Soo Getting Screwed Over."

"Why am I not surprised."

Satan ushered her to the door and handed her off to Beezlebub.  "Take care." Satan said as a parting line.  No handshake, no lecherous comment about her soul, just "take care."  Odd.

Beezlebub noticed her surprise.  "He takes a whole different approach for business since he took over insurance and prescription drug companies.  He's trying to be more Trump like.  It's not nearly as fun.  Anyway, here's your bag of goodies.  Go ahead look!"

Mae bobbled the large box of medications to accept the brightly patterned party bag and look inside.  There were several boxes of tissues and band aides and strangely a tube of expensive eye cream and a heavy hair conditioning treatment.  She held up the last two items with brows raised.

Beezlebub lay a hand on her shoulder.  "Oh, honey, I know you feel like hell but there's no reason to look like it."  He poked at her under eye bags and with a hand at the small on her back he ushered her threw an exit door that had appeared out of nowhere.  "See you later, girlfriend." He called and waved to her enthusiastically.

Mae found herself in familiar surroundings.  Her living room she realized.  She tried hard to think but all her thoughts circled back to one.  What the fuck was that!