I needed a quart of yogurt, so I went to the market. Correction: I wanted a quart of yogurt. I could’ve eaten my muesli with milk, but yogurt sounded better, and it’s fermented, so yogurt was the gutsy move. I also needed wanted muesli, so I threw a bag of that in my cart too. I got iceberg lettuce for a taco salad and some taco seasoning because after meal-prepping tacos for the coming week, we were running low on taco seasoning — an emergency in my book. Also, I got another carton of milk, because I didn’t want to make another trip to the store twice in the same week. In the check-out line I grabbed a bag of sugar-free, fake-ass Swedish fish for no reason at all. Actually, that’s not true. It was an impulse buy, and I swallowed that sugar-free bullshit fish candy hook, line, and sinker.
The checkout line wasn’t moving, so I took out my phone and read the news. Things weren’t going well, but that wasn’t exactly news. I put my phone away and thought about another impulse buy. Was I in the mood to read about meth-addicted celebrities performing autopsies on aliens, or was I hankering for Cheetos? Why had I framed the choice as either / or? Wasn’t this a classic yes / and situation? The cheap tabloid paper could absorb the neon orange Cheeto residue from my fingers, while I read the news that wasn’t fit to print. That felt like a win-win to me. But then the woman ahead me asked the man ahead of her if he was going to the Dodgers game this afternoon, and I forgot all about Cheetos and tabloid journalism.
“No, I’m not a baseball fan,” the man said. “I just really like peanuts.”
I looked at the conveyor belt. He wasn’t lying. The man was buying six giant bags of peanuts and a bottle of Diet Coke.
“I’m a Dodgers fan,” the woman said.
She sounded like she’d been smoking cigarettes since the late seventies. I put her at around sixty years old. She wasn’t interested in the peanuts. She was there to talk Dodger baseball.
“We’re hot,” she said. “We’re gonna win another World Series.”
I hoped she was right. I bleed Dodger blue. But I’m also a realist, which is why I don’t even start stocking up on fucks to give about baseball until July 4.
“Three in a row,” she said. “Never been done before.”
“The Yankees did it,” the man said.
For someone who said he wasn’t a baseball fan that factoid seemed to come out of left field, but I let it slide.
“They just win because they’re rich,” he said. “They buy championships.”
“Damn straight,” she said. “Best team money can buy.”
The man said something about money ruining the game. That made think he was an erstwhile fan — one of those people who say the game was better before free agency, without acknowledging that Curt Flood’s fight for free agency was as much about economic rights as civil rights. In any case, Mr. Peanut and Ms. Cigarette continued talking about how the rich get richer and everyone else gets fucked. They were talking about baseball payrolls, but they could’ve just as easily been talking about America, where social mobility is down, and the markets are up. He said something about baseball needing a salary cap, and she said something about socialism. That ended the conversation. Mr. Peanuts paid and left. Ms. Cigarettes was up to bat, and the cashier recognized her.
“Hey, weren’t you just in here like ten minutes ago?” the cashier asked.
“Yeah, I was. There’s a homeless gentlemen outside.”
The cashier frowned. I braced for a shit-show. These days when a customer complains about a homeless person outside of a store it’s a prelude to a physical confrontation, wherein the manager, backed up by a security guard, explains that America is a free country — unless you’re standing on private property. But the shit-show never materialized.
“I told him to come in with me and I’d get him whatever he wants,” she explained. “But he said that when he comes inside he gets hassled. So he gave me a shopping list.”
I looked at the conveyor belt. She was buying water, a dozen cans of tuna, four cans of chicken noodle soup, a jar of peanut butter, bread, granola bars, a bag of potato chips, apples, a canister of mixed nuts, and a pre-made footlong sub from the deli case. She was also buying travel-sized hand sanitizers, toothpaste tubes, and soap. It was an impressive haul. The total came out to a little over $100 — enough to treat two people to seats in the cheapest section at Dodger Stadium, provided they’re willing to hike up the hill through Chavez Ravine and skip the concessions. In other words: take me out to the ballgame, but don’t buy me peanuts or crackerjacks, or anything else because we just can’t afford these redonkulous prices.
“Take care,” she said. “I’ll see you next time.”
It was my turn. The cashier rang me up. He noticed my Dodgers cap, so we talked baseball. We both agreed on the following: Shohei Ohtani is a god, Dodgers tickets cost too much, and neither one of us would be caught dead at an Angels game.
Outside, I spotted Ms. Cigarette. She was talking to a homeless man. There were grocery bags at his feet. I heard her say, “You hang in there, Melvin, things are gonna turnaround.” Then she shook his hand, got in her car, and fired up a cigarette.
I hadn’t figured her for a do-gooder. I hadn’t figured Mr. Peanut for closet baseball fan with strong opinions on the salary cap, either. Mostly, I hadn’t planned to witness a random act of kindness and incredible generosity at my local Vons. It all felt out of left field, which usually gets a bad rap for all the random shit it sends our way. But in my opinion, left field, like the Dodgers left fielder, Teoscar Hernández, is underrated.
I got you.
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Seeing any random acts of kindness lately? Share!
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Are you a baseball fan, or do you just really love peanuts? Explain.
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Why Swedish fish, and why not Swedish meatballs? Wrong answers only.
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Made any good (or bad) impulse purchases lately? Dish!
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Why doesn’t anything ever come outta center field or right field? Go deep.
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