Evan Powerla's 3:30am Grocery Shopping Experience

Music blasted from the tiny speakers of Evan’s red Maserati. Despite the price of his convertible, the speakers really were dreadful, but nothing like that mattered at a time like this. With his hands on the wheel, Evan closed his eyes, submerging himself within the lyrics of his music. Something inside his brain forced his eyes to open, and the bright lights of red and green attacked him. Dazed from his angelic voice, Evan swerved to avoid a telephone pole, driving right over the sidewalk. His car crashed through a carved wall of topiary before he slammed on the breaks. Still fuzzy, his eyes took in his surroundings. Bush, parking lot, scratched car, large building, 3:30 am. “Dude, where am I?” Evan asked himself, before he faintly remembered the neon Hollywood Mini-Mart sign on the highway. “Cool dude.” he told himself, nodding slowly while staring fixedly at something above his dashboard. His eyes still pinned on the glowing lights, he began to unbuckle his seat belt. With one leg out of the car, Evan pulled himself to his feet, wobbly from the lack of effort. His tight shiny pants squeaked as he slowly made his way toward the sliding doors of the grocery store. Once he reached the entrance, he stopped, surveying the automatic aperture. He stared at the doors for a moment, lost in his own thoughts, before he took a step toward them. Doors amazed Evan; he didn’t understand things like hinges or wood, so these automatic mechanics really stumped him. He shrugged, and stepped forward once more. “Open for me!” he said, his voice louder than he expected. When the doors casually slid open, Evan hesitated before stepping through the opening, scared of all the possible outcomes, but he mustered up enough courage when the doors continued to open for him. “Of course you opened for me, because I am AMAZING!” Feeling super powerful, he took a deep breath and stepped into the cool grocery store air. Glancing around for any sign of life, Evan nodded in approval, for he didn’t see any degenerates in the mini-mart. His eyes scanned the top of the aisles, searching for certain food groups, but instead, he found the candy passage. Clumsily running toward the aisle, Evan plowed through a cardboard cutout of Gwen Stefani promoting a cabbage company, which offset his balance. Tripping over his own feet, he fell flat on his face, his tight pants made an ear-piercing sound as they slid across the dirty tiles. Evan, dazed from the sudden rush of falling, stared at the floor. Suddenly, his eyes focused on a tiny speck of dirt, soon his eyes crossed, unsure of what to do about the unusual substance that lay so close to his face. He decided the only humane thing to do was to scream, but since no sign of life had been noticed, no one heard his pleas. Once he realized that screaming and waiting for someone to come and clean up the dirt was far-fetched, he rolled his eyes. Humans that didn’t serve him disgusted Evan, so instead of using his hands to pick himself off the floor, which would obviously get them dirty, he decided the best way was to push with his face until he was on his feet. Grunting, he slid his knees up toward his face, so that his middle was bent, and his behind stuck up in the air. He clasped his hands behind his back, pushing against his nose so that his bottom pushed up even higher into the sky. Evan had worked himself into a tough position, with his behind in the air and his face smashed into the grocery store floor. He groaned once more, but then found a way, pushing with his forehead, to an upright position. He sighed, but felt accomplished. He had stood up without getting his hands dirty from the off-putting colored tiles of the public mini-mart! 

On his feet again, he continued his path toward the candy, and grabbed at least 10 packets of gummies, 4 bags of Swedish Fish (even though he thought they tasted like candles), and 7 large bags of Sour Patch Kids. He used his tight shirt, which he basically had to rip off his body, as a sack to hold the packets. He began loading more and more bags of sweets into the pouch of his shirt, holding the bottom of it up so it wouldn’t dump out the goodies. He stuffed as much candy as he could into his shirt, until he was positive it was going to rip, and ran, a little more carefully, back toward the entrance where the carts were. Once he was done dumping the contents of his shirt pouch into the metal cart, he backed up, creating a large amount of space before him. Then he sprinted as fast as he could toward the cart. He slammed into the handle, and grabbed onto it in the nick of time. The cart began to move with excellent speed, making Evan’s perfect hair slick back as if it was gelled. Giddy from the sudden rush of excitement, he screamed, knowing there was no one there to hear him. “I am AMAZING!!” came Evan’s echoing voice, so lost in himself that he didn’t notice the cart taking a sudden turn, the wheels screeching as the grocery cart came to a dramatic halt. Since he wasn’t paying attention to the movement of the ride, he was taken aback when he was thrown into the basket of the cart, landing on top of all his candy. “Yoooooo.” he started to say, as his eyes swept the mess he had created, noticing the tricky situation. Still a little shocked from the impact of his poor choices, Evan struggled to remove himself from the cart. He started with one leg swung over the edge, and one knee inside. He gripped the metal as he tried to hoist himself up and over the rim, but he ended up tangled in his own limbs. Grunting, Evan managed to get both legs over the edge of the cart, but his legs were too short to reach the floor. With his face so close to the cart, he managed to notice the amount of dirt that covered the metal, and his heart began to race. All the blood rushed to his head, for he was dangling from the grocery cart, his legs kicking like fish on land. With his head throbbing, Evan decided that the best tactic was to push himself away from the cart, which resulted in chaos. Because his feet didn’t touch the ground, he didn’t have a surface to push away from, so he ended up pushing with all of his strength, to realize that nothing was going to happen. Ok, how do I get my amazing self out of this gnarly situation? Evan asked himself, forgetting the fact that jumping was the obvious option. He tried the pushing tactic once more, and actually managed to get his legs closer to the ground. He extended his left foot as far as he could, wait, was that a hard surface? Evan had done it! He shimmied himself, still pushing with his hands against the cart, closer to the ground, where both feet could reach. Once he was positive it was safe enough to jump down, he carefully, and clumsily, directed himself to an awkward standing position. Nodding in approval, Evan smiled at his graceful experience. He turned back to the cart, telling himself over and over how amazing he was. Walking back to the candy aisle once more, pushing the cart in front of him, he grabbed at least 10 more bags of gummies and an assortment of sweets. He turned the cart toward the chip aisle, and recklessly knocked into a tower of cans. He watched as they all toppled over, thoroughly concentrating on the noises that they made. Hearing a beat, he began to hum. Once all the cans tumbled to the ground, Evan took the sudden ending personally, and he found himself bending down. He lifted his pointer finger, saying “Don’t you stop for me! I am the best singer in the world! I demand you continue now!” Waggling his finger again at the cans, he shouted once more; “I demand you to continue NOW!!” Evan, stumped as to why the music didn’t start again, moved on, aggravated by the silence. He kicked the cans angrily, then grabbed the handle to his grocery cart, steering it toward the Cheeto section. Forgetting his recent encounter with the stacked cans, he grabbed 15 bags of crunchy Cheetos, throwing them into the cart. He grabbed one more for good luck and then turned his cart around. Thrusting his hips back and forth as he walked, Evan headed toward the sliding doors that lead into the open air. He glanced around for any sign of life once more, and pleased by what he saw, continued walking. The idea of paying for his items didn’t occur to him, so he sassily walked/shimmied his way closer to the exit. “Open for me, because I am SO great.” Evan exclaimed, pumping one of his fists up into the air. When the doors slid apart, Evan didn’t bother to say thank you, which was his initial response, he just thrust his hand up and said, with a hint of sass in his voice, “Don’t talk to me.”

He ignored the loud blaring alarm as he walked into the warm LA air. As Evan wheeled his grocery cart toward his dinged up car, he noticed the giant hole in the topiary. Then, a faint memory popped into his head, and he realized that he had made that gap. Shrugging, he continued on, thrusting his hips back and forth until he reached his red convertible. He loaded his groceries into the backseat of his car, then continued to the driver's seat. He plopped himself down into the seat, enjoying the way his tight pants screamed as they hit the leather. He glanced at the glowing digital clock on his dashboard as he turned his fancy car on, and exclaimed at the time he saw. “4:23am!!” Evan yelped, clearly surprised, he had remembered it being around 3:15am when he left, he hadn’t suspected it was going to take a whole hour to shop! He shrugged again, and turned his car around, until he faced the giant gap that he left in the bushes. Glancing around, Evan was alarmed by the extremely loud screaming that took place in the building that he had just left, but he nodded as he saw the red light that flashed through the windows. The store is seeing me off! Evan thought, smiling at his own greatness. He turned back to his windshield, pressing down on the gas as he saw the obvious route. It was late, and he knew that it would take him an exceptional amount of time to go a few feet around the bush, so he plowed right back through the hole that he previously made, making it larger. “Oh yeah bro!” Evan exclaimed as he drove himself back over the curb toward his house. 

sonia_soso

VT

13 years old