It was 3 p.m. on a Saturday, and my mission was to get the makings for spinach dip.
This sounds easy, but it wasn't. For some reason, all the stores around where I live were out of the soup mix that is the key ingredient. It was annoying.
And you think that YOU have problems.
Whatever. In any case, I finally found a store with the soup mix in stock -- but it didn't have the sourdough bread round in which you're supposed to put the dip. When all was said and done, I made four separate trips to three different stores.
And at it was in that last store that I truly almost lost my mind.
I walked into Smith's to get the soup dip (it was my second trip there, as they didn't have the sourdough round, the bastards; I got that at Albertson's, but they were out of the soup, so I had to return to Smith's) and the first thing I saw was: A large woman wearing Spandex.
This sight was disgusting. The 50-ish woman was probably 5-foot-7 inches tall, 220 pounds, with jet-black hair. And she was wearing these black Spandex pants that left nothing to the horrified imagination.
I think that people who dress like this in public should be arrested. They should know that NOBODY WANTS TO SEE THAT. I, myself, would never wear such an outfit, for a number of reasons -- one of which is the fact that people, whilst shopping in the produce section, don't want to see the visual equivalent of a sack of bumpy potatoes crammed into form-fitting fabric.
If the moral folks of Nevada can take the time to fight gay marriage and legalized marijuana, why can't they take the time to fight people who dress like this?
Anyway, I managed not to lose my cookies, and I resumed my shopping. I got the mayonnaise, the sour cream, the green onions and the highly-elusive soup mix, and headed immediately to the checkstand, all the while trying like heck to avoid the stomach-churning sight of Spandex woman.
And I ended up in The Wrong Line.
You've been in this line before. You know exactly what line I am talking about: The one that moves exponentially slower than all the others for one of a number of reasons -- a new employee, a cashier with the intelligence of lint, a series of idiots who choose to slowly their write checks in calligraphy, etc.
In this case, the reason for the holdup was a confused, cranky old man who was trying to buy six cases of bottled water. The problem was that there was a limit on the number he could buy at the sale price, a concept that he could not -- or refused to -- comprehend. As he squalled at the befuddled cashier, with a shocked teen-age bagger looking on, those of us in line could do nothing but sigh and rub our temples, wondering what we did to earn the bad karma that made us choose this line.
After about 10 minutes, I had my groceries and I fled the scene, mentally writing the rough draft of a letter to my congressman encouraging him to sponsor of a piece of legislation banning Spandex, the First Amendment be damned.
I was pondering this and I was in a hurry to get home to make my spinach dip, because I didn't want to be more than fashionably late for the dinner party I was supposed to attend on the other side of town.
This led to the bout of inattention that almost got me killed.
I was making the left turn out of the shopping center. I looked left and saw a healthy amount of traffic moving at a more-than-healthy speed -- but I had time to make it. I looked right and saw no traffic coming except for a gargantuan SUV that appeared to be going forward. Therefore, I started to go.
And then the SUV made the last-minute decision to turn into the shopping center instead. (Or maybe it intended to all along and I didn't see the turn signal or something -- but the "last-minute decision" part is my story and I am sticking to it.)
The SUV stopped and almost blocked off my entire exit route. Meanwhile, my vehicle and I were already in the street with traffic zooming my way. I therefore had to do a special pirouette maneuver to dance my Saturn around the SUV, and out of danger.
I shook for the entire drive home. But I made it.
This whole debacle taught me a lesson: From now on, I am not going to volunteer to bring the spinach dip to the party. Between the Spandex, the confused old men and the dangerous traffic, the damn stuff's more trouble than it's worth.
Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan who is stunned that something called "spinach dip" really has so much fat in it. Jimmy's column appears here Tuesdays, and a newly updated column archive may be viewed at www.jimmyboegle.com.