Rumors About The Supermarket

I get an existential dread when I enter the supermarket. 

Today I learned I wasn't the only one.

I believe there is a werewolf at the supermarket. At night a man disappears somewhere at the back of the store: between the home improvement section and the place where you see pet fish. He hunts and stalks by the shoes, listening for when the boxes open and the laces are untied - when one is most vulnerable.

I believe there's something odd about the greeting card section. The manager says nobody on shift has updated its stock in seventeen years, and yet its cards are always new. She doesn't question it, and neither should you.

I believe the two butchers on staff might be aliens. Extraterrestrial aliens. They have eyes behind their eyes, and they're always talking about sitcoms and sports teams that don't exist - The Denver Superintendents, the Knoxville Salt Slugs, the Detroit Lions. I think they're here to spy on us. They keep asking if there's anything I want. I always say no.

I believe there's a ghost at the supermarket. It lingers in that place where you recycle your bottles and cans. When you're alone, you can still hear the sounds of distant crushing and clinking long after the cans and bottles have been processed. The ghost is a petty judge. It despises foreign entities. A xenophobic ghost, that also hates ginger beer.

I believe there is a poltergeist. Sometimes it throws items off of the shelves or undoes screws letting whole stocks collapse. When one reaches for the freshest milk at 3am you'll feel its cold grasp, and raspy whispers that the ones at the front are still fresh. Ignore the Best Use By date.

I believe the supermarket is infested with gremlins. Someone keeps finding the discarded wrappers of Little Debbie swiss rolls and chocolate cupcakes stashed in high and low places - under shelves, tucked behind the store logos, inside the middle stacked shopping cart. They leave the Nutty Buddies alone. Gremlins allergic to peanuts?

I believe shopping carts are the spirits of the dead. Soothed by the Orphean sounds of uncontroversial 90's music, by their orderly processions to and from the parking lot. They are kept clean and attended, and they help those who come. It's far more personal than a graveyard. People used to go to graveyards, but not anymore. Sometimes, a spirit will attempt to escape. You'll find them, lost and alone, unable to move on their own accord, on some walk by side of road. Nobody wants to help them.

I believe there are more store brands by the day. Store-brand pickles, store-brand broth. Store-brand bread and store-brand shoes. Store-brand "Caution: Floor Wet" cones and store-brand floor tiles. I think I met a store-brand person yesterday. Not an employee - what I initially thought was a shopper, with a store's logo shirt and a barcode tattooed on their forehead. They asked me whether I was able to find everything I needed. I uncomfortably replied: "Yes", and quickly moved on.

I believe I've seen several greeters at the doors. Different people, same nametag. Do they really just have one to share among them all? I might've thought so, until I asked one about a question and he responded like the woman I saw at the door last week.

I believe the supermarket has long-armed men working the stockrooms. The shelves are made in ways that no normally-proportionally person could reach, even with use of a stepladder. I've seen drag marks on mopped floors of wide boots flanked by trailing knuckles. In the dairy section the shelves go too far back. I'm 6'2'' and still couldn't reach the sour cream.

I believe there's a snake that lives in the supermarket. A big one. I've only ever seen its rattling tail, trailing around the corner of the aisles. It must be as big as a full grown man, from the size of that tail. Maybe bigger. I think it must live underneath the freezers, maybe, where it's warm and dark. Or maybe in the shelves between the aisles for mac & cheese and barbeque sauce.