If It Weren't For Bro Luck, I'd Have No Luck At All

You know how, where you're sick, everything annoys you, and nothing seems to go your way, and you really just want to sit down and cry tears of self-pity, but it hurts your throat too much? Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is having one of those days.

I couldn't sleep past 8:30 (I KNOW! Hillbilly Mom people problems!). I got up and fought with my constricted throat to swallow a tiny little thyroid pill. I can't imagine if I'd tried to slip a giant potassium pill past my contrary epiglottis. Probably would have felt like a cartoon picture of a snake that swallowed football.

I tried to nap in the La-Z-Boy without much success except for 20 minutes around 11:30. Then I took a shower and went to town for the Save A Lot shopping I've been putting off all week. I'm making some chili tomorrow, and need supplies.

You know how, when you go into a store sometimes, there's a person right behind you that always gets in your way? It's like whatever you think to get, they need the same thing, and are in a hurry, and make you rush to get out of their way. The only solution is to go two aisles over, shop out of order, then go back to the beginning after they're away. What? You've never done this? I don't believe you.

There was a middle-aged lady chatting with the adult stockboy about whether they carried some item they don't anymore. Then she asked him what was a good lettuce for a salad. I think she was trying to pick him up. Who in her right mind asks a dude about a salad? I went around them, not in the mood for fresh produce today, except for some white onions for my chili, a bag of which I'd already picked up before the great lettuce salad come-on.

Just as I stopped at the shelves where the latest specials are, to pick up some Campbell's Chunky Chicken Noodle Soup, they were on me like birds on Suzanne Pleshette's schoolchildren. It was a clueless dad who still had his hair, an athletic bro son of 17 or 18, and a gamer-looking son about 14. Let the record show that they were doing nothing wrong. Just three dudes out shopping for dude groceries. But Mrs. HM was under-the-weather and over bro-shoppers.

BroDad was hung up in the produce, perhaps trying to lettuce-block the adult stockboy from the middle-aged woman. AthBro, with his muscular legs in shorts, crew socks, and cross-trainers, hollered at GameBro, in his steel gray sweatsuit with the elastic ankles, draped from the waist up over the red plastic cart like a Salvador Dali clock, to pick up a can of biscuits, not the kind with butter in them, but the regulars. By this time I was at the eggs, touching each one in the carton, lest the third time be not a charm and result in a purchase of 10 good eggs and 2 imperceptably cracked eggs for the trifecta of bad-egg buying. The eggs. Right next to the biscuits.

I kept the carton I'd picked up, and scooted over to the glass-doored cooler to get two sour creams and a French onion dip. While I was putting back the expiration date of Oct 29 in favor of a Nov 5, AthBro told BroDad that he'd go get the sour cream. He stood patiently waiting for me to clear my carcass out of his way. I rolled my walker-cart over to the pickle/ketchup/mustard aisle, where GameBro was all splayed out sideways with his cart, waiting on the sour cream. AthBro had it, and sprinted over, telling GameBro, "Dude, get out of the way."

BroDad had made his way up the same aisle, and was perusing stuff on the left that I never look at. So the family was strung out along that aisle. Did I mention that my sense of smell has not yet left me? My still-empty stomach with its three dissolving pills did not take kindly to the odor emanating from one of them. It was probably just old tennis shoes. I blame GameBro. He looked the least kempt.

I could tell this was not going to work out. So I stood at the Heinz 57 display, and picked up a ketchup, and a Worcestershire sauce for my chili. I let the Bro Family move on. That way I could tell where they were. When they cleared the next aisle, I rounded the corner for my chili beans. I'll be ding dang donged if AthBro didn't come back up from the other end. "Dad? Dad? Do you want stew? They have big cans of stew!" BroDad hollered that no, he didn't want any stew. I felt kind of bad for AthBro, because I think he really wanted some stew. Those giant cans caught my eye as I rounded the corner, too. AthBro was up and down that aisle. Hollering to GameBro, "Do you need some ravioli? If you do, let's get you some ravioli."

Again, they were doing nothing but shopping for dude food like dudes. AthBro seemed like he kind of took care of everyone. I had the impression he might not live with the other two full time, or was home from college, or the most responsible of the three. BroDad had asked if he needed peanut butter, and AthBro said that no, he had gone to the store earlier in the week.

I don't know what AthBro was doing, but he was behind me while I looked for black-eyed peas, which were down with the tomatoes instead of in their rightful bean section. It sounded like AthBro was clanking cans. He had asked BroDad if he wanted a box, but BroDad had told him no, they would have boxes up front. Seriously. Even I was on the lookout for boxes. It's the WEEKEND. Anyhoo...AthBro started hollering for BroDad and GameBro, but they didn't come. I didn't want to get involved, and hot-footed it off that aisle to the cornbread aisle, making a detour over by the hot dogs to get around GameBro Dali and his cart. Seems that AthBro had picked up a flat of something, perhaps ravioli, and the cardboard collapsed, and he was about to be buried. But he got out of it, even though he couldn't believe his Bro cry was not heard.

Everywhere I went in that store, the Bro Family turned up. It was uncanny. Just when I thought I gave them the slip, they appeared. Even when I doubled back two aisles and though I'd follow them, there they were, following me again. I saw Nurse Nan, who used to work at Newmentia, and chatted for a few minutes. I swear, I thought the Bro Family was going to chat with her too!

At the checkout, the one on the end, where I DIDN'T find any pennies today, I was glad to see that two more checkouts were open, with nobody in either line. But wouldn't you know it, the Bro Family came and got in line behind me! However...Nurse Nan came back over, and started chatting with me and the checker who is the mom of a girl who graduated in the #1 son's class, about our sicknesses, and AthBro said, "Hey! How about we go over to 3? Yeah. That's it! On to 3!"

Don't think I got rid of them that easily! When I set out my two boxes and started putting in my purchases at the long counter at the front of the store, the Bro Family came right up next to me. AthBro was a bit discombobulated by the selection of only large boxes like twelve packages of toilet paper might come in. That dude had the right idea when he was box-searching.

I'm waiting on my hot & sour soup now, courtesy of Farmer H's four wheels, and hoping it perks me up. I kind of wonder what's going on it the Bro household at the moment.