My life is pretty goddamn boring, all things considered.  Actually getting up and going to the Acme for groceries today was the most I’ve done after work in a long time (outside of drinking, whoops).  That Acme at 20th and Oregon was a godsend.

We were just shopping for the basics. As 3 bachelors we don’t grocery shop nearly enough, sustaining ourselves mostly with grubhub and food our mothers’ pack us because they know we don’t grocery shop nearly enough.  Leftovers/care packages aside, we have had literally no food in our fridge since June 13th.  No milk, no eggs, no nothing.  Eggs make up about 60% of a bachelor’s diet, and when we’ve run out of those you know we’re in rough shape.

First, the deli meats.  I take a number.  Unsurprisingly, a person hired to slice cold cuts and cheese manages to fuck this up, skipping ticket number 9 and 11 (me).  After some minor chirping, he took my order (1 lb store turkey, 1/2 lb sandwich pepperoni, 1 lb provolone).  Pro-tip: Pepperoni on cold cut sandwiches is an absolute gamechanger.  After he cut the meats with glacial pace he went to the cheese (and I ate half the bag of pepperoni while I was waiting).  He ran out of provolone at .80 lbs, devastating.  But this is where things got interesting – he walked out to the front of the counter and lifted up the glass that covers the display meat/cheeses.  I was completely flabbergasted, how long have I been living in ignorance?

While waiting for the deli, I also saw the cart pushing kid.  He had to wear an obnoxiously bright yellow vest that said “no tips”.  Not only does this kid have the worst possible summer job (previous cart guy here), but his uniform explicitly states that he can’t accept tips.  Diabolical.

This process takes no less than 20 minutes.  Within this time Alex buys our other bachelor staples: 1 1/2 dozen eggs, 1 gallon of whole milk, 1 jar mayonnaise, 6 Amoroso’s rolls and a steak.  We’ve been in the grocery store for nearly 30 minutes and there’s not a single fruit or vegetable in our cart.  Fuck yeah.

But I do love me some smoothies, so I went for the following fruits – blueberries (BOGO, YOLO), bananas, and then [clueless].  I asked Alex what third fruit to go for (the naners weren’t nearly ripe).  He suggested peaches, as they’d bridge the gap perfectly between blueberries and bananas, which oddly makes perfect sense.  The peaches weren’t ripe so I opted for nectarines, which would turn out to be a fateful decision.  We got some tomatoes too, because you’re required to buy some when you grocery shop in south philadelphia. On the way out of the produce section we grabbed one white onion, to caramelize and put on the steak, and because it’s the least green vegetable there is.

The only additional dairy items we’d need were Greek yogurt (for smoothies) and shredded cheese (for the billion eggs in our future).  Bizarrely, there were individually wrapped, plastic spoons available by the yogurt.  Like, were we supposed to just hunker down and eat the yogurt there?  Doesn’t make any sort of sense.

We get in line.  This is where shit went haywire.  The cashier, named Nick, maybe 19-20, couldn’t tell what fruit the nectarines are.

“Yo whats youse call this?”

“Nectarines”

“Whats letter’s that start with?”

Audible gasp. Do you, philly public schools.  Do you.

“N” – as I eyeball his nametag.

“Auugh”.  Nick struggles mightily.  I see ‘white cheddar’ appear briefly on the monitor which is about as far from nectarine as you can get.

“Hey man if you can’t find it I’ll take them for free.” My humor predictably goes well over his head. I finally, mercifully, pay while Alex takes the groceries from the bagger into the cart and things somehow get worse.

In one bag: steak on top of blueberries on top of our carton of eggs.

In another: A single tub of greek yogurt.  In yet another: our single jar of mayonnaise.

Another: Firm, unripe bananas on top of soft hoagie rolls.

As someone who packed boxes at Costco to be maximally efficient and squish-worthy, this caused visceral agony for me.  All the idiots at the Acme are forgiven if I just find out they were stoned the whole time.