Coupon craziness creates riotous results

Note to self: When a local grocery store offers a $10 off coupon with a $50 purchase, be sure to dress appropriately for the event. In riot gear!

If I didn't know any better, I'd swear the end of the world was coming yesterday morning. It was like the nuclear missiles had been launched and everyone had 10 minutes to buy survival items and rush back to their fallout shelters. It was total chaos and there was some light destruction inside the store.

That coupon was a master marketing plan. You would not believe how many idiots were in the store saying stuff like "We're only at $37, for the love of God Mabel find something that costs over $13!!!"

People were running amok, smoking out displays and each other so they could grab the last of the TGI Fridays frozen appetizers and the pizza that was on special for 6 for $10 (I think I got food poisoning just reading the sign!). I thought this kind of shit only happened at Toys R Us in the Cabbage Patch Kids aisle, but I actually saw two guys nearly come to blows over the last box of frozen jalapeno cheese poppers.

From what I heard, one guy took it out of the freezer even though the guy 3 carts away had his eye on it! To make matters worse, the same guy had also lifted the last two boxes of potato skins from the case, leaving the appetizer shelves almost as bare as Mother Hubbard's cupboard. It escalated when one guy said he needed them so he and his buddies could watch the football bowl games and the other needed them for his wife's annual New Year's Tupperware party. When the football guy told the Tupperware guy he was whipped and should get the chicken quesadillas instead, the frozen section went to Defcon 4.

Luckily an alert stock boy, who overheard the physical threats looming, brought out a few more boxes and was able to broker a peace accord in the frozen appetizer area. After the two food psychos went on to fight other battles, I jokingly suggested to the stock boy that he tell them to shop at separate ends of the store just in case there was only one tub of nacho dip left in the potato chip aisle.

Meanwhile, one lady went apeshit in the cereal aisle as she had filled her cart with about two dozen boxes of Kellogg's and General Mills cereals, then saw Malt-O-Meal was going for 4 for $6. She was about the size of Reggie White, so she basically reached in her cart and picked up all the boxes at once and chucked them on top of a cracker box pyramid, smoked it out, then dumped about 20 bags of Tootie Frooties and Marshmallow Mateys in her cart and bolted. The aisle looked like Billy Joel had missed a turn in the parking lot and drove through that aisle of the store doing 100 MPH.

One poor bastard looked like he had every ailment in the book. The way he was coughing and bobbing and weaving, I thought they would be asking him if he wanted a plastic or paper body bag when he left the store. I wondered if I would hear an announcement saying "cleanup in aisle 6, corpse near the canned soup." This guy had a medicine cabinet in his cart. I hope he doesn't have all these ailments at once, but he looked like he had it all judging from his appearance and the items in his cart. He had medicine for: The shits (must be a really bad case because he had two bottles of Pepto and a box of Immodium), jock itch, athlete's foot, a corn that needs to be removed, another corn that needs to be "held" (who's corn needs a hug?!), a headache, a cold sore, a sinus issue he plans to attack with Vicks vapor rub, and hemorrhoids. Oh, I guess he also had a 1/2 gallon of milk and a pack of juicy fruit in his cart, because everyone knows gum negates all other odd purchases. And he still spent more than I did!

Despite all these obstacles, I was able to sanely shop and get what we needed at home. I kicked ass and took the cashier's name. It was LaShonda. I really had to turn on the charm because after waiting in line for 35 minutes, she put her little "this lane is closed" sign up when I reached the conveyor belt. She shook her head and struck a "talk to the hand" pose.

She told me her lane was closed but I told her it was my New Year's resolution to only go to the best-looking cashier's line from now on and she would make me break it on my first day (OK, I was being more dishonest than Scott Peterson, but I didn't want to go wait in another line for 30 more minutes and then get shafted again!). I wasn't sure this worked at first, so then I told her I originally had 10 items in my cart, but then bought 11 more because she wasn't running a 20-items-or-less express lane. She smiled, showing me her 4 lovely gold-capped teeth, and said "OK, baby, one more" and then stonewalled the old bat behind me!

Anyway, I saved $16.38 ($77.72 worth only cost me $61.34) thanks to my small stash of coupons including the $10 one. I also bagged my groceries in record time just in case LaShonda mistook my stupid "grocery lines" as an attempt to "bag" her.