Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 75248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Became deeper.
“What do you need to get?” I asked her as we started into the produce aisle.
The store was set up in sections. When you walked in the door, the traffic flow was directed to the right and dumped directly into the produce section.
Raven obviously didn’t go for veggies, seeing as she’d sped right past them and straight into the cold section.
The first thing she grabbed was a gallon of chocolate milk, followed by three packages of those break-and-bake cookies, one package of canned biscuits, four packages of cheese and twelve Lunchables.
“You know this shit is filled with harmful ingredients like MSG, right?” I asked her, eyeing the processed cheese she threw into the cart with barely contained disgust.
“I don’t like to cook,” she said. “In fact, I would say I hate to cook. I suck at it. Hence the shit I don’t have to actually cook in order to eat.”
“Hmm,” I hummed. “You know, I could teach you how to cook. Travis is an excellent cook as well. Dante’s wife isn’t half bad, either.”
She ignored the offers and instead focused on an endcap that had marshmallows shaped like dinosaurs. Picking them up, she tossed them in the cart before replying.
“I’m not kidding. I can burn water. And toast. I’ve been known to occasionally burn my Pop-Tarts,” she said as she turned away from the cold section and directed her cart down the canned spaghetti aisle.
She stopped in front of the canned soups and picked up one that claimed to be ‘Beer and Cheese.’
“That looks…gross.” I chose the word carefully, specifically steering my vocabulary away from anything that might come off as sounding like it was vomit inducing.
The next thirty minutes went like this: she picked up unhealthy foods, I commented about their unhealthiness, and she put them into the cart anyway. It continued like that until she reached the end and moved to the check-out.
I grabbed a granola bar made of whole grain oats and nearly ran into her when she turned abruptly.
“Stay here,” she ordered. “Keep my place in line. I’m going to go grab some beer.”
I stayed, but made sure to keep her in my line of sight as I watched her move to the far wall and open the glass doors that held the beer.
Picking up a case of the cheapest beer ever made, she carried it awkwardly to where she’d parked her nearly overflowing cart.
Once she was close enough, I grabbed the case of beer from her and set it on the conveyor belt before walking up to the cashier and paying for my granola bar.
Once I had my change, I stood off to the side and let the grocery sacker, a young man about sixteen or seventeen, stuff the plastic bags so full that I was worried they’d break the moment I started carrying them up Raven’s stairs.
I didn’t say anything and nearly laughed when Raven pushed the boy away from her bags.
“Cold goes with cold,” she explained. “Boxes with boxes. Cans with cans. You don’t intermix them, and you certainly don’t put the bread in with fucking cans.”
The boy’s face reddened, and I saw them narrow.
“Don’t even think about it,” I murmured to the kid softly. “You won’t win this.”
He snapped his mouth shut on whatever rude thing he was about to say and then walked away without a backwards glance.
The checker who showed me the picture earlier on her phone started snickering. “You wouldn’t believe how many people have told him that already. I think he does it on purpose now. You have a very well behaved dog.”
I looked down at Raven’s dog, MM, and nodded. He was well behaved. Marky Mark looked to be a highly trained guard dog. Whoever lost him must have spent a lot of money on his training.
Without another word, we were walking out to the truck while Raven studied her receipt.
“I think they overcharged me for my pickles,” she muttered.
“Go back inside and tell them,” I suggested.
She shook her head.
“No,” she replied. “It’s just a dollar.”
I rolled my eyes and refrained from saying, ‘Then why’d you say anything about it at all?’
Wisely, I kept silent and loaded bags into to the truck’s bed, my mind thinking back to the one time, and only time ever, I’d questioned my wife about something very similar to what Raven had just commented on.
It’d been about a year into our marriage, and I’d gone with Abby to the grocery store, much the same way I’d just done with Raven.
We’d bought fifteen million cans of condensed soup and, on one single can out of the fifteen million we’d gotten, they’d charged us an extra dollar for.
We’d spent a total of fifty-two dollars and forty-eight cents, and Abby had been livid.
She’d wanted me to go inside and show them my badge and force them to give me my dollar back.