February 09, 2005

For Whom the Flu Tolls

I was upstate over the weekend for a wedding. I flew up on Wednesday night and made a long weekend of it. And it was a long weekend. So much packed into four days.

Unfortunately, while I was there I picked up the flu and it hit pretty hard Monday afternoon. Tuesday I stayed home and was pretty much useless. Today I was home, but able to work.

I was caught unprepared when this thing took hold and my cupboards were pretty much bare. Although I wasn't really hungry through most of it, I forced myself to put a few mix-and-match meals together consisting mostly of crackers, chicken broth and some old pasta (I told you there wasn't much). My main concern, really, was getting enough to drink.

So today when I ran out of orange juice, I got out to the supermarket to restock my shelves. This is when I discovered that people that shop during the day in the middle of the week have completely different ideas regarding the passage of time than the rest of us... perhaps it was my looming headache that produced an acute "no nonsense" style of food shopping today, but it seemed that the aisles were filled with people just loping along; dreamily removing boxes and cans from shelves, examining them wistfully then placing them back only to slowly shuffle three feet ahead and repeat the entire process. I was on the verge of collapse and wanted to avoid all trouble or inconvenience, so I was careful not say anything I might regret or overturn any floor displays, but my shopping experience was dreadful and I could not help but believe that at the root of it was a much larger conspiracy. Perhaps some sort of zombie shopping hour I unwittingly stumbled into.