Out Of My League…

“You must be on a diet,” Jermaine said with his raspy voice surveying my cart. “You’ve got $20 worth of yogurt there.”

Jermaine wasn’t far off on the total. It was $28 dollars to be exact. I told Jermaine that he was right and then I asked him how his car was running.

“The engine is running a little rough, but it seems to be running fine overall.”

“That’s nothing that a little tune-up wouldn’t solve,” I told Jermaine reassuringly. “You probably need new sparkplugs, plug wires, a distributor cap, and a new rotor.”

“How much would all that cost?” Jermaine asked warily.

“Probably about $50 or $60 bucks,” I replied.

Then I saw her getting milk out of the milk cooler. I completely forgot about Jermaine and was transfixed. I could still hear Jermaine talking, but my gaze was on the beautiful red haired lady now in front of me. It was Wendy from Facebook. We’ve been chatting a lot lately – almost every day. I was too shy to go introduce myself. Besides, she was gorgeous and way out of my league. Seeing her in person dashed all hopes I had of us ever dating. She wouldn’t want an old fat scallywag like me.

I quickly headed to get my sugar free Klondike bars and then waited for my father to arrive. Dad finally walked into the store after a long 10 minute wait standing by the registers with my shopping cart.

“Have you been waiting long?” he asked seeing me standing there hapless.

“About ten minutes,” I replied with a deep sigh. 

“Your going to get hungry for something more substantial,” dad remarked of my cart of diet food. “You can’t live on SlimFast and Greek yogurt alone.”

“I’m pulling a Martha,” I replied with an inquisitive look upon my face.

“Yes, you are,” my father said with a frown – deep furrows forming in his forehead.

My mother was known to overdo it at times and take things too far. I inherited that aspect from her – that all or nothing mindset that has plagued me over the years.

“Let’s go get you some frozen meals and then we will checkout,” my father told me.

I watched as my father put a dozen random Lean Cuisine meals in my cart. I didn’t care what kind. I was still thinking of Wendy. I felt like I had been hit by a sledgehammer and was dazed and in a stupor.

“This is going to be really expensive!” I said to my father pointing at Maggie’s big $15 dollar bag of Purina One as I then remarked on all the expensive Lean Cuisine meals in my cart.

“If it is too much then I will put it on my Visa,” he said as the cashier tallied my groceries.

The final total came to be $122 dollars. Not quite a record holder, but close. The most I’ve ever spent is $125 dollars.