Christmas Eve at Kroger: Perfume alert in aisle 4!
One of two Obama Chia pets I bought as gifts this year.
It was morning on Christmas Eve, and I was busy. On the “to do” was a short list of tasks: pickup a last-minute present for my wife, some necessities for my mom, and deliver a Christmas gift to my dear friend terps.
His gift is right there on the left, an amazing Obama Chia Pet, produced by Ronco or somebody. A couple weeks earlier, I had hunted down that prize in the garden department of Kmart on Franklin Road.
I had snagged a holiday gift bag from my basement to put it in, but I still needed some tissue paper to wrap it. Preferably red, because terps, of course, is a red-blooded American male Republican.
Dollar General at Cave Spring Corners was out of every color except pink. I bought a pack of that for $1, just in case, then headed into Kroger to pick up a couple of other items for my mom, who was visiting.
And I thought, “well maybe they have red tissue paper here.” So after I picked up mom’s necessities, I wandered into the Christmas decorations aisle. But I didn’t see any tissue paper. I figured it would be near the wrapping paper. But I didn’t see any of that, either.
Suddenly the entire aisle was seized with an overpowering odor of cheap perfume. “Oh my God,” I thought. “Where’s that coming from?” Nobody was within 30 feet of me except for a young male Kroger worker — and it wasn’t coming coming from him.
And as I looked around for the wrapping paper, the bizarre perfume smell grew stronger and stronger. This was no ordinary over-dousing. It could scare away a mama grizzly in Alaska’s back country. On a warmer day it would have caused every fly within a mile to flee.
“Where’s the wrapping paper?” I said to the clerk. He led me over to an empty display.
“I guess we’re sold out,” he said.
Suddenly the perfume odor grew even stronger. A dowdy-looking woman who was about 60 years old was the only other person in the whole aisle. It had to be coming from her. She was walking toward us, and she’d overheard our conversation.
As she looked at me she had a smug smile on her face.
“That’s what happens when you wait ’til the last minute,” she said.
“What a nosy old hag,” I thought malevolently, as I suppressed my gag reflex. Her acrid perfume cloud was beginning to make my eyes water. The smell was revolting. I looked into her eyes.
“Thank you for telling me that,” I said in a blank voice.
Her face grew red as it dawned on her that she probably shouldn’t have opened her mouth in the first place.
“Well, uh,” she stammered apologetically, “I’ve got a lot of extra at my house. It’s less than a mile from here.”
I looked at her then turned silently and walked away, over to the other side of the store. Believe it or not, there was red tissue paper near the greeting cards. Chia Obama would get wrapped in red after all.
Later, at terps house, he guffawed at the gift. So did his 18-year-old son.
The gal who had doused herself in a quart of perfume was last seen exiting Kroger — as shoppers on their way in clasped a hand over their mouth and nose, trying not to retch.
December 27, 2011 - 10:00 AM
Who wouldn’t love such a bad taste gift! As for the perfumed lady, I’m glad I wasn’t there. I have allergies and strong perfume makes my sinuses close up. I can’t breathe in situations like that.
Wow, what a grinch. She was offering to share her store of what you were looking for with you, and you couldn’t be bothered to say “no thank you”? Dowdy, old hag, retch-inducing … you describe her as horrible, yet you’re the one devoting an entire critical blog entry to her three days later. Uncool.
tass, did you read the post? I already had thanked that walking cloud of pollution for the obnoxious and unwanted little busybody lecture she gave me in the gift-wrapping aisle.
I’m supposed to thank her again, really?
Let’s see does Suzie Q shop at Kroger? I can’t seem to remember.
Ron,
Couldn’t have been Suzie. Didn’t she drive down to Dollywood for Christmas?
I’ve been out a few days Dan. Must have missed that news.
I tell ya what..if they could mutate
a grass that wasnt so green id paste
thoses seeds to my thin spots.
I had an old VW in the 80-s…it leaked
from the floorboard and a number of other
places. Squirrels got into some birdseed in the
backseat. By March the inside was turned into
a Chia Ghia. I mowed it with scissors.
Had a little par 2 over the backseat hump.
Who the heck invites a stranger to their home on Xmas eve to give them wrapping paper? Very Stephen King.
How charitable and on Christmas Eve, no less.
Walmart had plenty of wrapping paper still available. Heck, I bought 4 rolls at half-off on clearance yesterday that I’ll store in the closet until next year. That’s also how we get our cards for the holidays. No sense paying $5 a roll for wrapping paper, or for a box of cards. And if all else fails, Dollar Tree.
Those who soak on the perfume can and do choke people. It is a migraine trigger for me. Do you reckon their own nose is broken and they cannot tell? I had a similar experience at Kroger in Vinton and I could smell the lady coming an aisle (or more)away. At first I thought they were spraying with some remote air freshener but it was too cloying to be be “freshener” of any kind.
It would be rude of anyone to comment about “waiting till the last minute” since 1-many many people do and 2-most people end up with last minute needs even if they planned way ahead. As we all know from this blog, some people enjoy other’s misfortunes.
I am more interested in you and Terps being “friends”. How is that exactly?
terps and I are both from Maryland. His sister lives in the Annapolis community I grew up in. We were both messengers in downtown DC at the same time, though we didn’t know each other then. We met later, when he moved to Roanoke. We’ve agreed to disagree on politics. It’s not that difficult.
Thanks for explaining, I had not put all that together.
Speaking of smells, I’m cooking a meaty ham bone for broth. My apt is right next to the building managers office, and we share a vent. I took my recyclables up to the trash room a few minutes ago, and when I came back down she met me in the hall. She said that ham smells so good it’s driving her crazy.
Actually I am sad that no one got ME an Obama Chia Pet. I love Obama memorabilia.
#12 Disagreeing on politics is not unusual — I disagree with a number of my friends about various things. I guess my problem comes when somebody says something like all the Occupy Roanoke people are smelly and they’re all jobless and destroying Elmwood Park with trash and driving away families from the park. And none of it is true. Or when somebody constantly runs down the Roanoke Valley’s largest employer that gives back to the community in large ways (not that everything is positive about them).
Sandi…
Im on your page.
Most perfumes give me raging
headaches..
At work it can be a problem..
because im not sitting beside the same
person all the time.
The sweet perfumes are the worst..
especially the ones they buy in wooden barrels.
Dan, do you mean to say that you find it possible to disagree with someone over politics and still realize that they are not pure malevolence walking? How can this blasphemy be possible? More importantly, can you teach lessons on how to do that? It seems that too many people view anyone who disagrees with their politics as ‘the enemy’. It actually diminishes us all.
gdad, terps runs down The Roanoke Times, too.
Chuck,
It’s simply called acting like an adult, that’s all. Among other things, being an adult means you realize the world doesn’t always agree with you.
#19 OK, maybe it’s not so bad that terps runs down Carilion, although casting them as pure evil is little overboard. But I have yet to understand why anybody posts on a blog like to this to spread lies about any topic.
Ah well, almost time to join my bowling teammates, half of whom I disagree with politically. And a third one who used to vote Repub all the time but has switched most of his votes because of the hard right turn of the GOP.
IDK what kind of friends anyone claims to have, the kind who will call you names and denigrate your POV with insults are not just “Disagreeing on politics” and IMB they are not friends.
I have plenty of people I know, some only through screen names that are not my friends and I have many who are just a screen name but also what I consider friends. Terps runs down all of that and then some. But Dan and everyone else can claim any friend that suits them, to each their own, but I do not use the term or bestow it lightly.
I had to steal this comment from a conservative friend on Facebook.
“Just heard that there’s an abundance of donkeys loose in Texas due to last year’s drought.. Does one of them answer to the name of Rick Perry?!”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/27/victoria-jackson-muslim-brotherhood-fbi_n_1170790.html
I can’t stop laughing. Who says the right isn’t intellectual ?
Victoria Jackson used to play a the world’s dingiest dingbat on SNL. Now we know it wasn’t an act. . .
Another bizarre Victoria Jackson clip. Hang in there for the University of Maryland grad. The Terps are proud!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/12/victoria-jackson-goes-to-occupy-wall-street_n_1007822.html
“Another bizarre Victoria Jackson clip.”
I’ll never forget the look on Carson’s face when she stood on her head and recited poetry. People will say anything to stay in the limelight.
I remember Victoria doing the rounds in the
years after she left SNL..She did go on some
wild tirades. Diminished her a lot in my view..
Not because of her position ..it just turned her
into a not very nice person.
Does the asylum know she is loose? You cannot help people so intent on throwing credibility to the wind.
The really puzzling thing about Victoria is that hasn’t yet declared herself a candidate for the presidency.
She seems to fit right in with at least some portion of the current collection of candidates and good easily pull in the ten percent of the electorate who prefer to wallow in the mud pit of daffy conspiracies.
If you ever want to know (and I don’t) what it feels like to see a bogey man in every closet, just follow Victoria’s trail of anxiety on the Web. I’m pretty sure both of my cats are more rational.