Pads+Tampons+Handsome Men at the Grocery Store=Awkward

Having a house full of girls is like a fun sleepover most days, but there is one problem … Cycles synchronize among close females. PMS rules the roost for about a week out of every month. Super fun.

          About 2 months ago, my youngest daughter and I were doing the dreaded grocery shopping. We came to the feminine product aisle and realized we needed to make a purchase. Though I am not an extreme coupon-er, I am trying to be more aware, shop wisely and be more frugal with my money. If I find a non perishable item that is on sale and we use it, I stock up. Between all of us and the numerous female friends who seem to be at our house, we basically need the entire variety spectrum of girly goods. That means an assortment of tampons and pads, several of each. (Hate to use those detailed descriptions, but it is what it is.)

          Anyway, all of the above were on sale. Considering the fact that I hate going to the store and don’t particularly like buying these types of things, I stocked up on all of them. Quite the array was in my Kroger basket. It was like a collection, only not art or coins, but Kotex, Playtex, Tampax, Always, Carefree and so on …

          We made our way to the checkout line and I strategically chose a female checkout-er. Maybe that was for my own sake, maybe it was to spare a guy, maybe both? I would rather wait in a longer line to get a girl. If I just had one little box or pack it would be different, but I could be mistaken for a distributor who may be stocking up to resale.

As I neared the line, the cutie patootie manager was walking by.

It is unclear to me what he actually does because I have only seen him overseeing things. No one has ever told me he is the manager, so I don’t technically know that’s his title, but he carries the look of one. He is usually hurriedly, yet smoothly, walking from behind the main desk … then from here to there. Always looking like he is on a mission somewhere doing something important … and smiling like the Kroger Playgirl model. I couldn’t help but notice that he seemingly does squats.

He is handsome and most likely is very aware of that fact. I’m not sure what his name is because we have never really had a conversation. He basically makes a point to acknowledge me with his attractive smile, flashing those beautiful, white teeth, and a charming, “Hello.” I say hi back, then try not to make further eye contact because he has that woman-sucking-in-mannerism and I don’t want to fall victim to his spell.

After he said his greetings to me, I noticed another blushing woman light up and say hi to him. I thought, Hmmm, I bet this is an all day, every day thing. He just walks around the Kroger store melting women as they buy their groceries.

He seemed to vanish and I got busy doing what people do as they are in a checkout line waiting behind 2 other buggies. THEN, the next thing I knew I heard a man’s voice, “You can come on over here, I’ll check you out.”

HORROR, pure and total horror. I am not one to embarrass easily, but I felt my skin get hot and perspiration became a part of me. I tried to decide what to do and slowly drove my buggy filled with feminine products to the line he had considerately opened for me. Ironically, I had never seen him in the checkout line employee role, which, on this day, was odd and unfortunate from my perspective.

There he stood, politely swiping my goods while I unloaded my buggy. As I heard each “beep, beep,” I tried to get all of the food things first and dreaded unloading the 2 or 3 boxes of tampons and about 8 packs of pads. I look like a pad and tampon hoarder …and one who surely suffers with anemia. There is no way to minimize this.

In my best nonchalant voice, I acknowledged the obvious without making eye contact in an attempt to hide my pink cheeks, “Soooo, we have a house full of girls and thought we would stock up today … {forced laugh} … Sorry about that.”

He seemed to find quite a bit of humor in my predicament and replied, “It’s all good. Just a part of life. I see you’ve got the chocolate here too. That all goes together, right?”

Oh my heavens. WHY did my oldest child need a huge bag of chocolate to take to cheerleading TODAY?!

I caught the amused, mortified look of my daughter who was trying to look down and hold back her laughter and said, “Yes, that’s usually the rule.” Then I changed the subject by asking if he knew a mutual friend, which I knew he did, but I needed to shift the conversation from menstrual cycle facts to more comfortable lingo.

He swiped, and swiped and swiped a lot of tampons and pads, then gave me the total due. I paid and he said something along the lines of us going home and trying to have a good night under the circumstances. Why I found it necessary to validate that I was pre-buying for later, not now … I have no idea.

I think handsome men who work at grocery stores should not be allowed behind the cash register and bag loading areas. End of story.

Stocked up,

Kasi