People Watching in Roland Park

So I usually do my grocery shopping in Roland Park. To make a long story short, Roland Park is where the rich people live. They live there because it’s really nice, and also apparently because they have a grocery store that people like me (not rich) want to shop at (rich people love feeling superior), even though if I were to be totally honest with you about it I’d be better off shopping at Super Fresh (where they serve up cold cuts with slices of dead insect body pressed into the mealy, insipid meat, which, did I mention, is past its expiration date?) or some other grocery store that doesn’t have a budget for such luxuriously unnecessary staff positions as: cart unloader, grocery bagger, and door opener (automatic doors are so low class). And do you know what? These people fucking smile, son. They almost like you.

I guess that’s what it means to be rich. You need someone to unload your cart for you because of what might happen if you had to bend over and pick up your own high-end foods and goods (we’re talking about such risks as: maybe your platinum-rimmed monocle falls out of your eye, breaking into a thousand, gloriously shimmering pieces; and, what if you hurt your back trying to pick up the half gallon of farm-fresh chocolate milk?). It’s a serious problem—one that you wouldn’t bother yourself with if you were rich. You’d just shop in Roland Park, like me (not rich).

A brief note of apology for myself. As a non-rich person, I have no business doing my regular shopping in such an exclusive establishment (THEY UNLOAD YOUR FUCKING CART FOR YOU). But what can I say? I like the thrill of feeling like I imagine the rich feel as part of their everyday experience. And so what if I bring a loaded gun with me to the store (just in case)? And so what if I’m crippled by the fear of discovery, the worry that they might test me by not immediately coming to assist me in unloading my cart (in which case I wouldn't reflexively display the proper sense of disgust at such an offensive slight, thus outing myself as a pleb)? Yes, I am a man—a man with weaknesses. Their lunch meat is so fresh. The milk, it comes in these authentic-seeming glass bottles. It’s like, why not me? Why not me, God?!

Ahem. I have something in my eye. One second. Just one second please.

Okay.

Do you like stories? Because I have this one story I could tell about shopping in Roland Park, if you want to hear it.

You do?

Let us go then, you and me. Let me take you on a journey of the mind.

So I was shopping for groceries in Roland Park the other day, waiting in line at the lunch meat counter, when I saw something that kind of blew my mind. It was this guy.

Seriously, look at this guy.

In case it’s not obvious, there are a few details here that normally you wouldn’t see together. Like, the fact that this dude is basically wearing a gym outfit (the tucked-in t-shirt is a nice touch) except for the ridiculous bling wrapped around his wrist.

The watch, it’s really nice.

Also, he's got an iPhone.

I guess it’s possible that he was also taking photos of me, or, in the words of Lord Nikon in Hackers (one the greatest movies of all time), he could have been “snooping onto them [me] as they snoop onto us [him].” Pardon the marginal glosses. I make no assumptions about the relative intelligence of my readership. Other than that I basically assume you are all illiterate mole people who accidentally figured out how to use the glow machine you stole from that poor man who had the misfortune of falling down one of your secret holes that one day when he got lost in the forest on the way to what he thought was going to be an important business meeting (Finally, my children will respect me, and I’ll be able to afford my AIDS medicines). But in all likelihood, this amazingly-dressed, conspicuously-consuming gentleman had no idea that I was performing a kind of anthropological field research, using my own iPhone camera to press these otherwise ephemeral images into analyzable permanence. For the sake of all mankind.

Nice one.

Apple Bobbin'

Spotted in the checkout line at the grocery store:

At first I thought: Maybe this lady (not pictured) just had a really nasty apple hunger AND had just about had it up to here with her old toilet brush AND by happenstance she was thinking about both of these things at the same time on her way home from work and thought, oh what the hey I’ll just make a quick stop in the neighborhood Super Fresh to pick up these few goods and then that will be two fewer things I have to worry about—OH and I need one SOUP. And shampoo.

But then I thought: Boy them sure are a lot of apples for just one lady (she was on the small side for a lady). You’d almost think that she needed that many apples for a specific purpose, a purpose, moreover, whose deeper logic is detectable from the other items displayed thither on the checkout-line conveyor belt.

And then it hit me: Bobbin’ for apples in the (cleaned) toilet.

A few questions: Would the participants of this activity be volunteers and, in the immortal words of The Sandlot, would they like it? Or, is this some sort of punishment for crimes committed in connection with Halloween? Like, maybe this lady received a painful shock to her conscience after walking in on her children bobbing for apples in alcoholic cider after leading them in a wholesome Bible study but a few hours earlier. (You’ll recall that Halloween fell on the Lord’s Day this year.) Maybe she wanted them to associate apple bobbin’ of any sort (and underage consumption of alcohol, if you follow the logic here) with being forced to put yer face into a shitty toilet, but then, on account of her unfortunate “episode” in the bathroom this morning--the result of a large meal of questionable Indian leftovers the night before--decided that she’d give the toilet a quick scrub before doling out the punishment. And maybe she wanted to eat soup while watching her children act out their penance.

In short: I guess you could say I’m the type of guy who takes pictures of other people’s stuff at the super market.