Self-Checkout

Somewhere in life he has picked up habits, thought patterns that, for whatever reason, can’t seem to be undone. Some things trivial, like how he must consciously remind himself that eggs are not a dairy product, or that “stomach” isn’t spelled with an “e” -- a constant, embedded “ache.” But then there are those of consequence, of obsessions and latent dreads that are daily debilitating, and almost all revolve around food.

In line at self-checkout, his shopping cart is strategically stacked in order to hide the groceries he finds the most embarrassing. A top-down descent of cloudy-bagged produce veiled over sugar-coated cereals, snack bars, boxed pizzas and waffles, an eight pack of toilet paper (a Freudian paranoia, by proxy) atop two tubs of ice cream, down to the crowning glory: a double- dark, chocolate cake bought on bakery clearance, crushed all the way at the bottom.

He tries not to think about how, logistically, he will fit this all inside his body, in what horrible ways, calorie-by-empty-calorie, it will settle in and spread him out. Rather, he imagines how for some, this weekly trip to the grocery store must be an all but calming, meditative escape, wherein you can momentarily tune out the vicious thoughts widening the walls of your skull in exchange for the echoing, shopping-list mantra, “Pickles, pickles, pickles.... Yogurt, yogurt, yogurt.... Soap, soap, soap....” Though now, for him, sidling between crowded aisles, even breathing turns consciously inwards -- a deliberate pull in, push out, pause, then repeat.

So much of him right now feels deficient, inaccessible. Only edges and contours forming the vacuous whole. He waits among this discordant noise of F# beeps, crinkling plastic bags, automated greetings to valued customers similarly willing to make the added effort of self- scanning and –bagging if it affords them one less face-to-face interaction, one less set of eyes dissecting their diet.

He has no idea when this shame of eating first started. He has only a vague memory of what it was once like to eat food untainted by the coinciding anxieties of eating food. What it was once like to taste things beyond the inherent spoils of calorie count, of proper-portion size, of health effects due to artificial additives, chemical preservatives, antibiotic and growth- hormone treatments, animal treatment via factory farm practices of physiological/biogenetic manipulation for the sake of consumer palate, of inventory turnover, cost effectiveness, of short- term gains vs. total ecological devastation and hopelessness and frankly, lameness felt for even bringing the subject up, this nauseating awareness of how the proverbial sausage gets made and at just what cost it takes to keep our food so cheap, and abundant, and readily available, and of course (as if getting himself to eat wasn’t already hard enough), the ensuing guilt that throttles and clots his metaphorical heart when he inevitably shrugs and buys them, anyways.

It helps to just not think about it. To see eating as nothing more than a physical obligation, an essential process to staying alive. He finds watching TV during meals helps to keep it down -- and then, sometimes, not.

Back home, he unpacks each plastic grocery bag down to a shriveled, shapeless wad. He then shoves each empty plastic bag into one single plastic bag, then shoves that plastic bag down into a bottom kitchen cabinet filled to the brim with other plastic bags filled with more of the exact same.

His dietary choices made on this particular trip do not resemble that of anything close to a responsible adult diet, but it’s a step. He knows just how easily he could’ve not gone. His stomach burbles, unloosens like a fist. He swallows a breath. The oven preheats to 400°.

Stephen Wack is an Atlanta-based writer. His work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in: Salt Hill Journal, Maudlin House, Foglifter, Cleaver Magazine, and The Woven Tale Press. To get in touch: @stephen_wack / stephenjwack@gmail.com