Food Acquisition in the Zombie Apocalypse

I went to two different grocery stores today.  Normally, I shop exclusively at the poor people grocery store, where I spend excessive amounts of time scooping staple foods out of the bulk bins.  Today, however, I was on a mission.  If you're a fan of natural peanut butter, you know how important it is to find a brand that mixes well and doesn't turn into concrete when refrigerated.  The poor people store sells plenty of peanut butter, but the only natural kind is basically peanut-flavored quick-set concrete.

So I ventured back to the "high end" grocery store to find some acceptable peanut butter.  "High end" in Idaho is roughly equivalent to "cheap" in New Jersey, but I usually had a job when I was buying food in New Jersey, so I'm sticking with the poor store for the time being.  But I digress.  I pulled into the parking lot of High End Grocery Store.  The parking lot was at that pleasant state of equilibrium where it's not so empty that you wonder what is wrong with the store and why no one shops there, and not so full that you know it will take you three times as long to complete your trip because people in crowded grocery stores mill around like confused cattle.  The people in the store were wearing nice clothes, and they were smiling.  They didn't smell bad, and didn't have tattoos on their faces.  I had a brief and pleasant conversation about peanut butter with an adorable old lady, and then I was back in my car with my wonderful acquisition.  It happened as if in a dream, from which I didn't want to awake.

Then I drove to the other grocery store.

It felt a lot like that movie, Save the Last Dance, when Julia Stiles' character shows up at the ghetto school for the first time and just knows she is going to die.  The parking lot was crowded with smoking, broken down vehicles that must have been pushed there from another century.  Drooling old people with leaking colostomy bags trailing behind them staggered into the store and made a beeline for the saltines and prune juice.  Entire families of scantily clad, heavily tattooed individuals were getting in near-physical fights about the best way to spend their food stamps.  Babies were crying, not from hunger or wet diapers, but from crack withdrawal.

I must have made a wrong turn somewhere.  I was not at the grocery store.  I was, in fact, experiencing the zombie apocalypse.  I sprinted into the store and crossed items off my list in a frenzy.  The looting going on all around me was so extreme.  Clearly, we were all competing for the last bits of sustenance on earth.  I finally understood why it was necessary for my fellow shoppers to pile their carts high with frozen BBQ ribs and Snack Packs.  You have to keep up your strength when you're battling zombies all day, and this stockpile of food isn't going to last forever.  By all means, cut me off with your cart.  I understand.  You have to hurry, because you have children at home.  Probably lots of them.  And the zombies will be after their tender brains.

In my haste, I grabbed a box of "Kellogg's All-Bran bran buds, a natural wheat bran cereal" to mix in my yogurt.  In my hurried, adrenaline-fueled logic, I thought, well, it's called "All-Bran" so I must assume that it does, in fact, contain all bran.  How could it possibly contain other ingredients and still be called "All-Bran?"  The stress of the situation overrode my usual OCD tendency to read every ingredient in every product I buy, and the stench of BO and government cheese was blurring my vision so I couldn't read the fine print anyway.  I threw it in my cart and sprinted off to the milk aisle.

When I finally returned to the safety of my home, my vision cleared and my heart rate returned to normal.  I peeked at the ingredients in my fiber-laden purchase, only to discover a laundry list of high fructose corn syrup and unpronounceable chemicals.  I died a little inside when I realized my fate.  I must return this item.  I simply have to go back.  There's a zombie apocalypse out there;  I must return and do battle once more.