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The hot and sticky night outside yields to a rush of cool air as the doors part, caressing my bare legs and licking sweat away. I shiver and hurry across the threshold. My flip-flops clap against the pale tiles. I select a basket instead of a cart and grip both handles in one hand. The molded plastic digs into my flesh when I tighten my grip. I stand there experimenting with the sensation for a moment before my thoughts catch up to me.
It’s bright inside. Bright and alive in a different way than the parking lot outside. The fluorescent lights hum along with the murmur of other shoppers as I crane my neck for the aisle I want. This isn’t my usual store. The layout is different. Everything is different.
On my way there I pass the fruit display. Shining, colorful, sweet temptations arranged in neat mounds. I am brought to a halt by the peaches in particular. There’s a large one on the top of the pile. I pick it up, feel its heft, the softness of it. Too soft for my grip, it turns out. Ripe and dripping down the heel of my hand. Oops.
I put it in my basket, a little embarrassed, and lick the juices away. I’ll eat it on the way back.
It’s soon joined by two sweating cans of cold coffee and the few other small, sacred things I came for. That part is easy, it turns out – everything is at the same end of the store. But it takes me a long time to find the right body wash in the proud rows of bath products all standing tall and colorful together. They changed the bottle design, apparently, and the brand name has slid straight out of my mind. Amazing what a person can forget.
Right as the cashier is about to finish scanning me through, I impulsively add a round, rattling canister of breath mints from the display right beside the register. I’ve never once thought about those before. They used to just be scenery, a last desperate grab at your wallet before the store relinquishes you.
But everything is different now.
I bite into my thumb-bruised peach and step outside, back into the humid embrace of the night.