I’m having a craving.

I was on register six all day spying that damn Kettle Chip display in the vestibule. So, I’m standing in a long line to get them. They are on BOGO.

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Hello again, this time from Chili’s in Oviedo, Florida. It’s going on 8 pm ET USA. Rose got student loan money. She’s taking us out. We are NOT getting fajitas.

Rose called me while I was yanking my stuff out of two lockers in the ex-breakroom. She wanted to go to Chili’s for dinner. “I have no money for that,” I said. She replied that it was her treat.

I worry that she spends too much money on eat out food. Neither of us has really been in a cooking mood. I’m still processing the turns my life began taking back in October when…..when I had no idea about the gut punches I would receive in Mid-December and on January 1st. I just never expected this educated, seemingly honorable man to…. oh fuck him. Yeah, I thought I might have a chance of doing just that. Sorry, the anger and hurt pops up at weird times. Unfortunately, he performs a different important function in my life. I’m still deciding if I should line up a replacement or not.

Where was I? Oh yes, about to leave work. I took Rose up on her offer and headed out to the sales floor. I went to the snack aisle and snatched up my Kettle Chips. The lines were still long but, I was having that craving.

When the head cashier, I will call her Miranda, rang me up my chips did not ring up BOGO. I didn’t care. I still wanted my damn chips. One rang at $2.50 (on sale but, not the same sale) and the other rang at $3.49 (regular price). I thought I might have hallucinated the BOGO sign but, then I peeked into the vestibule.

Off I went, headed home. Apparently, Semoran Blvd traffic is hideous at 5:20 pm too. I knew that but, unless I really, really love a job I don’t want to hang out there for too much longer than necessary. I decided to plow forward.

As I said earlier, I spent my shift married to register six-the number of love in numerology. Oh, that’s funny. I didn’t attract any love but, I did attract a boatload of returns and exchanges. It’s not like at Walmart where there’s a whole different department that does returns, exchanges and money services. Cashiers at Sprouts are trained to handle them. It’s never anything big. Holy crap, at Walmart the cashiers working Customer Service sometimes dealt with people returning whole orders of groceries plus, customers experiencing WIC (Women Infants and Children) Hell. Sprouts does not take WIC cards. I can’t say it upsets me.

Number six gave me zero love and no hot doctors unless they were in disguise. I did get a guy nurse in scrubs but, I felt no sparks even though he was nice. Dern.

My shift ended at 4:30 but, there were long lines. We were down a cashier who called out. I offered to stay a little longer but, they demurred. Labor percent observation, I’m sure. I remember when I did the weekend bookkeeping at a Casa Gallardo on Fowler Avenue in Tampa, part of my job was to calculate the labor percent. I think the goal was to keep it between 18-21%. As I recall it wasn’t outrageous very often. I’m not sure what the grocery business aims for.

It’s 8:30 pm. Rose and I are chilling. I’m finishing my glass of Pinot Noir. We ordered so much food. I could not finish the second half of my grilled chicken sandwich. We got two appetizers. They are mostly boxed up and ready to travel. I didn’t realize our sandwiches came with fries. I accidentally dipped a fry into the little cup of ketchup that came on the plate and then ate it. I thought I was going to turn into a pumpkin. Ketchup is an abomination. What idiot decided that smashing the crap out of perfectly good tomatoes and mixing the goop with sugar was a good idea? Hideous.

Our meal is done and we are going to Target, the same one I was in on Saturday. I need dental floss and, I know it’s shocking, but we don’t feel like stopping at Publix. Did the earth’s rotation just reverse?

It’s 10:31 pm ET. I’m exhausted and about to start soaking my CPAP parts. I want to ignore Colbert tonight. “A Late Show,” is so hilarious, I get too much of a buzz from laughing so hard then I’m up till 3 am.

Stephen Colbert is evil. Maybe not as evil as my Kettle Chips.