Show Business Is A Hideous Bitch Goddess

So proclaimed the back of the acrylic knit sweater that the boy in line ahead of me at the grocery store was wearing.

Phew!  That was an awkward sentence.  Let me start over.

This afternoon, while in line at the local Intermarché, I noticed the sweater that a boy in front of me was wearing.  It was made of cheap black acrylic.  On the back was the saying I chose for the title of my post, and on the front was an image of Bart Simpson. 

Never mind the fact that the kid should have been in school.  I can only assume he was home sick, because he had a runny nose and was with his mother and his baby sister.  He grabbed a copy of the French equivalent of TV Guide to add to the cart. 

I stood there and thought about cheap acrylic.  And French small-town grocery stores.  And if Bart Simpson would really say something like "hideous bitch goddess."

Intermarché closes between 12:30 and 15:00 every day except Saturday.  I got there at about 15:30 -- enough time to shop before picking the kids up from school.  Yeah.  There are ten lanes at my Intermarché, and when I was done filling my cart, I got in the queue at one of the 2 (two!) lanes open. 

One aging lady a couple of carts ahead of me had had a problem with her Mir dishwashing liquid.  It was all over the goddamn place.  A store employee came and cleaned it up. 

There were still only two lanes open, and at least five people waiting in each lane.  The Mir cleaner-upper said "I'm going to wash my hands.  I'll be right back."  When she returned, she mercifully opened another lane.  I stayed where I was, because by that time The Cheap Acrylic Family was unloading their groceries onto the belt, and they only had a few items. 

I listened to the boy, who must have been at least 10 or 11, tell his mother what was on the week's TV schedule.  "Ze Sheening," he said.  "Ce n'est pas bon pour moi."   His mother shook her head.  He added "Why?  Is it about someone who walks around with a chainsaw?"  And then extrapolated about movies with chainsaw-wielding characters. 

I just smiled.  And thought about how I mentioned Jack Torrance in a recent entry here.  And wanted to say "Kid, watch out, Ze Sheening is about a guy who moves to Colorado and goes nuts that winter because someone eats his lima beans, and isn't show business just a hideous bitch goddess?"   

Instead I just quietly paid for my groceries and got back home just in time to pick up the kids. 

Comments

[Allan]

Thanks for the little slice of French life.

Supermarkets here are the same way. Ten to Twenty check-out lanes and never more than two or three open at any given time.

[BHD]

Nice to see you got custody of your sense of humor, my friend! And make sure you wash your hands. You don't want any bitch goddess germs on your Brussels sprouts, do you?

[leslie]

at my local cafe i saw a teen wearing a t-shirt that said anal+ (in the same font as canal+ of course). at least it was cotton.