Meijer and the kale club

I have crossed the line.

I don't know exactly how it happened... it's all a blur, like I'm in a scene from Memento or... Fight Club.  I'm looking in the obligatory mirror (but I'm not sweaty) and... I don't like what I see! *heaving sobs* (but no runny mucus ickiness). I crossed that hair's-breadth line from normal to crazy, sanity to lunacy, Drew Carey to Jim Carrey (is it the double Rs?). In short, I've become a health nut.

Egads!

Like an idiot, I watched the documentary, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, asked for a juicer for Christmas, then on New Year's Eve headed for Meijer, driven by my madness (and Honda Odyssey) to seek out the Holy Grail of anti-oxidants--Kale.

Let the games begin. I grab a standard cart, no cool Mini-Cooper-esque double-decker cart for me, I'm shopping for Kale--in bulk. I head for the massive produce section, in my head mapping out, then rejecting where the glorious green could be.

I pass the first produce bag dispenser stand, surrounded by amateurs waiting their turn. pros like me know, never stop at the first bag dispenser, sink deeper into the produce ring, you will be rewarded.

I pull the tightly folded plastic bags, one, two, three, four(!) tear my bags and head off to the Land of Spritz--the area of so much fresh green that they get their own sprinkler system--aka Land of the Crazies.

I've blogged before about the broccoli hoarder, and the avocado aficionado and now, me--facing a crowd, all jockeying to snag Kale. Darn you, Netflix and New Year's Resolutions!

All the blood rushed to my unpainted toes (it's winter!), abject fear that Meijer--the superstore--would run out, and then what?! Maybe for lack of blood, my brain's usual super-ability to solve all of life's problems screeched to a halt. I had no plan B!


What happened next is an organic-green, rustling-plastic, pasty-white blur. Although... I do recall growling. But it wasn't me that kicked the cane out from that cry-baby "senior citizen."

At the check-out lane, I rubbed my throbbing scratched hands, licked my cracked lip (that was already winter-chapped, but I'm sure it looked wicked), then nodded knowingly at one of my worthy Kale-hoarding opponents in the next check-out lane.

He nodded back, knowing what I knew. "The first rule of Kale Club is: you do not talk about Kale Club. The second rule of Kale Club is: you DO NOT talk about Kale Club."