Maybe They're Just Really Messy Eaters ...

As I've previously written, there is perhaps no greater source for comedy — not including my apartment building — than the Shaw's in Allston on Comm Ave. It's like the place is a Bermuda Triangle for common sense (and common decency, but let's stay positive here for a change).

To wit: Tonight at around 6:30, I got in the line to self-check-out. In a different self-checkout line was a mother with her young son, wheeling a full shopping cart filled with ... napkins. I counted as the son slid the 180-count packages of Marcal napkins across the scanner and the total was 10. Ten packs of 180 napkins. Now, I don't know how many people there are in their family, but based on what else was in their cart, I have to believe these two don't run a small business or have a large family. So I ask, what do they need with 1,800 napkins? Perhaps they'll use them to wipe up the case of iced tea bottles they bought. Or to clean their hands after preparing the ground beef they bought. Or maybe, just maybe, they're having a really big party, or inviting all of Allston to dinner. I don't know. Either way, it's not like napkins don't ever go on sale. I buy a package and it lasts for a few months. Sometime between now and when they finish, oh, let's say the second package, I'm sure they'll see the same ones on sale again. And also, if they were going to buy 10 packages of napkins — again, a total of 1,800 napkins — why didn't they just go to Costco?

Of course, what was additionally funny was — well, take your pick. Was it watching the mother just stand there while her son scanned all the packages, never quite knowing where the UPC symbol was, even though it was in the same place on every single package(!!!) and then scrambling to put them into shopping bags even though they all couldn't fit on the shelf? Or was it seeing this twosome leave the store, and struggle to carry all those napkins and the case of iced tea and the ground beef and all the other stuff they bought. I guess they hadn't seen the pick-up option? (No, I didn't laugh at the fact that these two were on a line that had a 15-item limit, and they clearly had more than 15 items.)

Shaw's, that great big melting pot of age, culture, attractiveness, and intellect. When will the laughs end?