I was wandering the aisles of the local grocery mart the other day, furrowing my brow in a vain attempt to comprehend why I need to repeatedly return to there. I sometimes have a hard time with the concept that my shelves don't magically replenish their food stores while I sleep or something. I plodded my way down one aisle and made note of a gentleman, probably in his mid thirties to early forties, attending to his shopping business. As he perused potential products for purchase (mmm alliteration), he carried on a conversation, in spite of the fact that I was the only other person in the immediate vicinity and he did not appear to be on the phone.

Now, I've been known to talk to myself, sometimes in the clicking language of !Kung people of Namibia, but not often whilst grocery shopping. Usually that is kept to a low muttering, but this fellow was speaking at full conversation volume. I did my best to avoid him, but sure enough I ran into him again a few aisle down. This time I actually heard part of his external internal dialogue, and had to stifle a guffaw. It went a little something like this:

"Yea, time to get some motherfucking Ritz Crackers! 'Low Sodium'?! ... 'Garden Vegetable', oooh!" The last bit was a very Homer Simpson-esque squeal of delight. As I moved past him (betwixt him and his precious "motherfucking" Ritz Crackers) he said, over and over, "excuse me, 'xcuse me, 'xcuse me, 'xcuse me..."

Any takers? Normal? Tourettes? Liquored up?

If nothing else, it gave me a good story to tell. And for that, I thank you, Mr. Crazy Talking To Himself Grocery Store Guy.