Never, ever, under any circumstance, go to King Soopers after 6:00 pm.

I went to the grocery store the other day on my way home from a meeting at around 8:00 pm. I’d had a busy day and was exhausted, but I remembered that we were out of milk and bread, so I ran into King Soopers really quick.

I had never been to King Soopers at that time of night.

I will never go at that time of night again.

I walked into the store and immediately felt out of place. Ok, I know this is going to sound bad, and I know that God loves those who have physical and mental disabilities just as much as he loves those who don’t, but I felt like I was in a zombie movie. I think I was the only able-bodied, right-minded person in that store.

In every aisle, at every turn, there were people hobbling around, talking to themselves and twitching. I passed a woman in the cereal aisle, smiled and said “Hi” when we made eye contact. Just after we passed, she turned and yelled, “I DIDN’T HEAR WHAT YOU SAID LADY! I DIDN’T HEAR WHAT YOU SAID LADY! I DIDN’T HEAR WHAT YOU–”

“I said hi,” I interrupted. Then I ran around the corner as fast as I could.

Well, after that uncomfortable experience, I vowed never to go to King Soopers again after dark. When I got out of work at 6:00 tonight, though, I figured it was safe to head over there again and load up on the groceries. It was still sunny out, after all.

WRONG.

Everything seemed normal until I got in the checkout line. The two cashiers working were moving slower than molasses, so the line continued to get longer and longer as I stood there. At some point, while I was evaluating all the strange things in the cart of the woman in front of me, I became aware of angry shouting.

Looking around, I located the culprits: the heavyset, t-shirted woman behind me and the slightly-thinner, red-highlighted woman in the checkout line next to us. Apparently these women have a history, because they were yelling about each other for all to hear.

That’s right, about each other. Not at each other.

“Ooooh damn!” exclaimed woman-in-line-next-to-me. “That bitch is faaaaaaat!”

“That ho over there has so many children, y’all. Straight up ho,” woman-behind-me poignantly noted.

“Bitch so ugly and so fat. Yuck!”

“Ho’s got six kids, all diffr’nt baby daddies.”

“Listen to this bitch! She so angry cause she so fat and ugly.”

(And my personal favorite:) “Ohhhhhh Lord. I will slap this bitch up in here. In the name of Jesus, I will slap this bitch!”

(I wanted to tell woman-behind-me that I doubted Jesus would want her to “slap this bitch” in his name, but I refrained.)

Meantime, the teenage girl scanning the groceries of the lady in front of me asked her if she had wanted to have “all those children”, pointing to the ones in her cart, or if she “just got knocked up”. The lady shrugged and said she’d rather have had all girls.

Eventually, it was my turn to check out.

“Crazy night in here, huh?” I asked the cashier girl as the women continued to yell about each other in the background.

“Yeah,” the girl replied. “The lottery machine is broken.”

Uhhh… Not what I meant.

Finally, I paid for my groceries, grabbed my cart full of goodies and headed for the door, only to be informed that I had been in the wrong check-out line all along.

Apparently, as the greasy-haired bagger from the next lane over explained to me, “all the fine ladies check out with him.”

My mistake.