Huarong Home: Caught on Snack Cam
A girl knows a girl has problems.
For example, I'm a rage-aholic, unable to survive without hulking out on some rage-a-hol every now and again. I'm also addicted to thrift stores that sell by the pound, buying tons of other people's junk. And now I must confess that I am also a victim of yet another compulsion: snacking.
If there's a veggie fruit platter at a party, I'm hovering by it. While cooking, sometimes I get full from chomping on ingredients before the meal is prepared. My fingers have grown calluses from popping open peanut shells and sunflower seeds. I eat raisins with chopsticks when I'm using my beloved ZieZie because I don't wanna get the keyboard all sticky.
A girl loves her munchies.
For the most part, this has been a private issue as I am still a functioning member of society even with my snacking dependency. I haven't had to eBay off my Mr. T Experience 7" collection or hawk my yellow booty to pay for my habit.
But I may have severely pissed off my dealers, the only two supermarkets in town, with my addiction.
A Better Life (Bu Bu Gao) and Heart to Heart (Xin Nian Xin) both have open-air bulk bins. It used to gross me out, large wooden troffs of dried fruits, nuts and grains sitting idly as passing customers coughed and sneezed around them without covering their faces and then occasionally dipping their unclean hands into the mounds of food. But the I began to acclimate, my standards of sanitation dwindled and I joined in on picking through handfuls of green raisins, unphased by the fact that dozens of folks have sifted through the same pile of shrivelly grapes. I crossed a new threshold- eating unwashed food. And I survived.
I grew more confident in my digestive abilities and began to freely pick through their bins- even the expensive stuff like almonds and walnuts were fair game. And I kept at it. And they noticed.
The clerks at both stores shoot daggers at me now and hover around as I pick raisins. I get the feeling that I was caught on security cameras and there's a loop of me munching on their products that's being shown in their break rooms. It's not paranoia either, because I know the snarky Hunan sneer when I see it- and I'm in the crosshair.
I've got to lay low and I've hit a new low by alienating my supermarkets. Of all the things tumbling around my brain, this is the one concern that I can't stop dwelling on. It's more than just finding a new place to buy groceries while I fade from their collective memories and surveillance tapes. This is the end to part of my social life.
I use the term social loosely, as it isn't really a social activity, but going to the market is one of the few things that get me out of the house. Without a gang of ne'er do well friends to hang out with, I've turned to spending my free time in well-stocked aisles.
This is akin to being caught yanking the tap, refilling your pint glass and getting banned from your neighborhood bar. That's how devastating this feels.
For shame.
What's more sad? My self-imposed exile from A Better Life and Heart to Heart? Or that I compared a grocery store to a bar?
For example, I'm a rage-aholic, unable to survive without hulking out on some rage-a-hol every now and again. I'm also addicted to thrift stores that sell by the pound, buying tons of other people's junk. And now I must confess that I am also a victim of yet another compulsion: snacking.
If there's a veggie fruit platter at a party, I'm hovering by it. While cooking, sometimes I get full from chomping on ingredients before the meal is prepared. My fingers have grown calluses from popping open peanut shells and sunflower seeds. I eat raisins with chopsticks when I'm using my beloved ZieZie because I don't wanna get the keyboard all sticky.
A girl loves her munchies.
For the most part, this has been a private issue as I am still a functioning member of society even with my snacking dependency. I haven't had to eBay off my Mr. T Experience 7" collection or hawk my yellow booty to pay for my habit.
But I may have severely pissed off my dealers, the only two supermarkets in town, with my addiction.
A Better Life (Bu Bu Gao) and Heart to Heart (Xin Nian Xin) both have open-air bulk bins. It used to gross me out, large wooden troffs of dried fruits, nuts and grains sitting idly as passing customers coughed and sneezed around them without covering their faces and then occasionally dipping their unclean hands into the mounds of food. But the I began to acclimate, my standards of sanitation dwindled and I joined in on picking through handfuls of green raisins, unphased by the fact that dozens of folks have sifted through the same pile of shrivelly grapes. I crossed a new threshold- eating unwashed food. And I survived.
I grew more confident in my digestive abilities and began to freely pick through their bins- even the expensive stuff like almonds and walnuts were fair game. And I kept at it. And they noticed.
The clerks at both stores shoot daggers at me now and hover around as I pick raisins. I get the feeling that I was caught on security cameras and there's a loop of me munching on their products that's being shown in their break rooms. It's not paranoia either, because I know the snarky Hunan sneer when I see it- and I'm in the crosshair.
I've got to lay low and I've hit a new low by alienating my supermarkets. Of all the things tumbling around my brain, this is the one concern that I can't stop dwelling on. It's more than just finding a new place to buy groceries while I fade from their collective memories and surveillance tapes. This is the end to part of my social life.
I use the term social loosely, as it isn't really a social activity, but going to the market is one of the few things that get me out of the house. Without a gang of ne'er do well friends to hang out with, I've turned to spending my free time in well-stocked aisles.
This is akin to being caught yanking the tap, refilling your pint glass and getting banned from your neighborhood bar. That's how devastating this feels.
For shame.
What's more sad? My self-imposed exile from A Better Life and Heart to Heart? Or that I compared a grocery store to a bar?