Last night, I had to make a late night trip to the grocery store. As is the rule for late night trips to the grocery store, I was purchasing a small quantity of strange items: 28 lbs of kitty litter and five bananas. When I got to the register, I saw a little line in front of me. "A little line," I thought, "that's no problem." There was a fellow two spots in front of me with maybe 15 items: some salad, some kind of frozen lo mein, etc. Nothing noteworthy. I had a hard time seeing what the fellow directly in front of me had because he was big, and slightly rotund.
Eventually, it's Big'un's time to load his stuff onto the scanner belt. I watched him as he did it, and I soon saw that the guy was buying nothing but candy. He had a whole cart full of peanut M&M's. "That's a lot of peanut M&M's," I thought and I immediately began to wonder why a lone large man, late at night in mid September, would be buying a cart full of peanut M&M's.
"Getting ready for Halloween?" I ventured.
He laughed and shook his head.
"You must have a sweet tooth," I said. I thought that was probably the nicest way to ask a portly man if he was trying to get the chocolate monkey off his back.
He smiled and muttered, "Nope."
I thought for a minute again and asked, "Are you a school teacher or something?" When I was in elementary school, they used to throw candy at us and turn on the Aristocats whenever the teacher wanted a break. Maybe Teacher Big'un just needed a break.
But no, that wasn't right either, or so I assumed because he didn't respond. By this time, the cashier had rung up all of his candy bags. The grand total came to $78. I'm not sure if I've purchased $78 worth of candy throughout my entire life, but here comes Mr. Mysterious Big'un, doing it all on a Tuesday night.
By the time I got out to the parking lot, and that's a shame because I really wanted to see his car. Did it have a vanity plate about candy (maybe CNDYMAN)? Was it a chocolate brown? Did it have a magnetic sign on the side that read, "Gingerbread House Construction"? We will never know.
Posted by Cody at September 6, 2006 6:19 PM