Bob's Angry Rants

Things did not go well for me after work yesterday. Typically, I go home and eat dinner, which I did. Then at around 5:55 or so, I pack up my stuff and walk to the BART station (subway-like mass transit for those of you not from the SF Bay Area) to go to San Francisco for school. The walk takes about 10-15 minutes. When I got there, however, I realized that I had no ticket and no money. Of course there are no ATMs at the BART station or anywhere around it, so I had to walk back home, get in the car and drive to the nearest ATM, where I had to wait for the two slowest ATM users in the history of automated cash dispensing. By the time I got some money and got back in the car, I was going to be around an hour late for class, so I just gave up on the whole idea.

I called Anne (my wife) to tell her that I wasn't going to class and asked her to stop working late and come home. Anne asked me to stop by the store and pick up some quick eats because we didn't have much food at home.

I went to the neighborhood Safeway and tossed a couple frozen pizzas in the cart along with hot dogs, buns, a bag of chips and some fried chicken from the deli. As I was going through the checkout counter, I realized what a sad grocery list this was. I started getting a little paranoid (it had been a long day) and wondering what the clerk thought of me. I mean here was a geeky looking asian guy in his late 20s, alone, who was buying a bunch of food that required only a microwave to prepare. I was sure that she was thinking that I was a loser. I wanted to brandish my wedding ring and say, "Look, I'm married. And I cook all the time! I'm pretty good at it, really! You gotta believe me! Its just that this past weekend we had a big dinner party so we don't have many leftovers and I go to night school so I can't cook every evening. I have a fulfilling life, I swear!" I don't know why I care what a checkout clerk may or may not think about my life. It is likely that she didn't give me a second glance.

Also, I don't know why people feel embarassed buying condoms or tampons for their wife or things of that nature. At least those products say, "I have a life." To me, buying a bunch of frozen/instant food and snack foods says something more like, "I'm a sad loner who never grew up." Now of course I'm sure that there are many people who live off of TV dinners who have very happy, fulfilling lives and some gourmet chefs who are desperately lonely people, but I just have these associations in my mind, right or wrong.

So anyway, I got my food and went home and spent the evening with my wife instead of a bunch of law students, which I guess was pretty nice after all. Still, it is not an experience that I'm hoping to repeat any time soon.