I Met the Lowest Common Denominator of Mankind at Winn-Dixie

So it's Saturday morning, and a quick inspection of the fridge/pantry lets me know that our household is in dire need of a few vital items from the store. Existing inventory of staples such as Mayfied Turtle Tracks ice cream and doughnuts has somehow been allowed to fall to unacceptable (well, actually, nonexistent) levels.

So I announce my plans. "I'm going to the store!" I have to yell this, because my wife is keeping at least two closed doors between us. She's angry with me for some supposed "budget crisis" our family is having; she claims we aren't going to have enough money this month to pay the mortgage and the car insurance, and has no idea where our money is going. I've learned to keep a low profile during these tirades. Reasonable arguments such as "But I needed some money -- we were out of Mayfield Turtle Tracks ice cream" serve only to enrage her. God knows why. Besides, what are they gonna do? Repossess our house? I've carefully checked, and the house seems to be fastened into the earth with concrete and wood and bricks and stuff. And it's very heavy; I doubt they could lift it to repossess it. So I think this whole "budget crisis" crap is just a way to keep me from my Mayfield Turtle Tracks ice cream.

I get in the car and motor cheerfully to Winn-Dixie, our local supermarket. I get my usual two carts (one for meats, vegetables and other junk; the other for Mayfield Turtle Tracks ice cream) and purposely move to the right, away from the ice-cream section. In the past, several Winn-Dixie employees have greeted me personally as I walk through the door with a hearty, "Hey, it's the ice-cream man!" Which I resent. I buy plenty of other things there, besides Mayfield Turtle Tracks ice cream, and their efforts to make fun of me are unwarranted. So I've taken to avoiding the ice-cream section for a little bit, because I know they're watching me.

I scan my handwritten shopping list, and notice that "sandwich meat" is written on here. Good. The deli is in the far right corner, about as far as I can be from the ice-cream section and still physically be in the store. That'll show them! I'm not ruled by ice cream! True, my steps do falter a bit, as I move further from the Sphere of Ice Cream Influence from which I draw my power, but I'm strong; I can hold out.

I pass an assistant manager in his sporty red vest. He looks quizzically at my two empty carts and says "Can I help you, sir?" I know he's trying to delay my trip to the frozen racks which hold the Mayfield Turtle Tracks ice cream; it's a little game those scheming bastards play. They think they can bother me. I feel tiny beads of sweat begin to trickle from my hairline, but I muster my composure. "I'm just going to the deli for some ice cream," I say, suavely. He looks confused, but my logic is unassailable; beaten, he moves aside.

So I finally stop at the deli. Racks of wrapped meats and cheeses gaze disinterestedly at me through the glass counter. I summon the attendant, noting with alarm that my strength is beginning to flag.
"I need a quarter-pound of smoked ham," I say. The attendant, a wizened gnome of a woman, shuffles halfway down the rack before stopping. "What kind?"

I'm caught off-guard. "Beg pardon?"

"What kind of smoked ham you want?"

Well, how in the world should I know what kind of smoked ham I want? Smoked ham isn't important. It's not like I was asking for Turtle Tracks ice cream, and she asked me "What kind?" to which of course I would immediately reply "Mayfield." Do companies spend billions of dollars branding their smoked ham? I think not.

"Whatever you recommend," I reply.

She doesn't move. "I got some good Woodvale."

"Okay, yes, fine, Woodvale by all means, a quarter-pound."

She shuffles all the way to the end of the rack, stops, slowly pivots, then shuffles back to the exact spot she was occupying when she asked me what kind of smoked ham I wanted. Obviously another agent provocateur for Winn-Dixie, attempting to torture me by making me wait for my Mayfield Turtle Tracks ice cream.

She reaches into the case and brings out a brick of meat. As she shuffles to the slicer, she looks at me again. "How much did you say you wanted?"

"A quarter pound," I say, for the third time.

She starts the slicer and begins complaining to another woman behind the counter that Margie hadn't oiled this thing properly, and if Margie would oil it right it would cut much smoother. I can't really concentrate on their scintillating conversation, because I'm dreaming of the creamy smoothness of the Mayfield Turtle Tracks, the little "crunch" you get when you bite into a frozen Turtle, the silky texture of the caramel swirl ... 

I snap out of my fugue state to notice that the woman has piled more than half a pound of sliced meat on the scale, and she shows no signs of stopping. She's in a meat-slicing frenzy, Margie and her lack of oil be damned. I try to get her attention, but she can't hear me; she's in The Zone, that fabled place where meat fairly slices itself.

I begin to wonder if this woman is actually an employee of Winn-Dixie; she doesn't seem competent enough to slip on one of those sporty red vests without help. I'm saying "Ma'am? Ma'am?" over and over again, ever louder, with no result. She's still a'slicin'. Finally, in desperation, I shout "Mayfied Turtle Tracks!" and that gets her.

"What?" she mumbles.

I point to the scale, now groaning under more than a pound of sliced meat. "That's too much. I just wanted a quarter pound."

She flips off the slicer in exasperation. "You shoulda tole me that," she said.

At another time, with the strength borne of ice cream surging through my veins, I would have dealt with her severely, if not savagely. Alas, I am too weak to mount even token resistance.

"I'm sorry. Just wrap up what you've got. I'll take it."

She hands the package to me, and I fairly sprint to the ice-cream aisle, where I jam my whole head into a half-gallon carton of Mayfield Turtle Tracks ice cream. I hear sniggers behind me; obviously the Winn-Dixie minions feel they've gotten the better of me this time.

I complete my shopping, trying to ignore the streak of caramel sauce glazing my hair. As I wander down the pastry aisle in search of doughnuts, I happen to glance into the cart. I stop in confusion, and the cart behind me, laden with seventeen cartons of Mayfield Turtle Tracks ice cream, slams into my ankles. For a moment my amazement is too complete to even notice the pain.

What sits in my cart in its little cellophane wrapper is a pound of sliced honey-roasted turkey. Not a quarter-pound of Woodvale smoked ham, not even a pound of Woodvale smoked ham. Honey-roasted turkey. One pound. Boar's Head.

And then I realize, as a caramel-filled turtle slides down my neck, that I had just met the woman for whom every Jerry Springer show was taped; the woman for whom every infomercial was filmed; the person for whom all the radicals of the Left and the crazies on the Right compose their arguments; the target audience for the film "Glitter."

I had met the Lowest Common Denominator of Mankind. Beyond her lay madness.

(c) 2012 John Puckett