She Accosted This Woman in the Grocery Store

My fantasy author avoids the grocery store as much as humanly possible. She hates going there. Always has. Sandy Lender believes her mother used to "trick" her into going to the grocery store with her when she was a teen by cajoling her into going to some other store...and then stopping by the grocery store on the way home. "Oh, let's stop by the grocery," or, "Oh, I need to pick something up at the grocery store," were words Sandy grew to distrust. She tells me that she actually started questioning her mother before they would leave the house with "we're not stopping by the grocery store, are we?"

Anyway, Sandy was literally down to spaghetti noodles, canned green beans, and wilting lettuce that she wouldn't even feed to the tortoises today so she had no choice but to stop at this dreaded store on her way home from work. She rewarded herself for getting through the ordeal without killing anyone by picking up a little carton of this ice cream stuff made by a company called Turtle Mountain. (She's got a post about them at her site at www.todaythedragonwins.blogspot.com where she discusses their policy on helping the Sea Turtle Restoration Project.) So when she got to the frozen foods case (and do you realize that your society is able to freeze food to the point that it is solid? and it stays that way?), there was this lovely older lady standing there staring at the ice cream. Obviously indecisive. So...never one to be shy where sea turtle preservation is concerned, Sandy said, "I always buy the Turtle Mountain products because they're great and their proceeds help protect sea turtles." I watched with interest as the conversation just rocketed out of control from there. Insane, I tell you. What are the chances that someone would respond to that? So she stood there talking about mint chocolate chip ice cream and sea turtles with a total stranger.

Writers can be bizarre.

The most bizarre part? The lady bought a carton of the Turtle Mountain ice cream. Sandy should be in marketing for this company...