Parking Lot Picnics.....

We have dueling bellies. When they get hungry the low threatening growls that emanate from our stomachs is enough to drain the blood from the faces of those unfortunate enough to stand near.
GRRRRRRROWWWWWWwwwLLL!
The poor souls, caught in the back and forth hunger pains of our stomachs, gasp and sputter. There's the familiar tell tale sound of panic, similar to that of water circling down the drain, but it's the blood fleeing their heads!
It's not a wild cougar under our shirts, we don't do that any more. It's our tummies rumbling, Pooh style, as in Whinnie the, and as my husband likes to say "My belly button is rubbing a blister against my backbone."
So fine, eat. We do. But occasionally when we are out on one of those multiple store shopping sprees, hopping from place to place, trunk filling with loot we find ourselves stranded. Stuck in the middle of a sea of fast food, which we pretty much NEVER eat any more, and our bellies are growling at each other. People walk a wary distance from us, lest something horror movie-esque should happen, like demented alien creatures ripping forth to lunge at each other in a disgusting and completely un-holiday like brawl in the parking lot.
We can't help it. We're hunnnnnnngry!
Fast food whispers, the sly little devil in our ear. The voice that sounds suspiciously like a Carl's Jr commercial. And though it is tempting, so tempting to slip quietly into the masses lined up in one of those joints a vein of of something un-masses like runs through us. When we are hungry we are like 2 year olds, wants it NOW, but 2 year olds in adult bodies with debit cards in our pockets, fast food devils in our ears and a hankering for cheese that isn't so neon yellow it makes the sun look pale.
Before we are reduced to licking the odd stain on the car door that we are at least 96 % sure is a soda from 4 years ago, that vein of adult-ness throbs. It quiets the beast of our bellies for a moment with the promise of food. Food fast. But NOT Fast food.
The lights of the Trader Joes spill across the parking lot, illuminating the glistening Southern California cars that are polished to a high shine. It gilds the hair of the pedestrians loaded down with bulging sacks of goodness. Our nostrils flare as we pass the sweet Grandma-esque lady with the loaf of french bread sticking out the top of her bag and my belly growls and she glances warily at me and I flash my teeth and try not to look like a vampire in need of a fix.
We're on a mission.
FOOD!
We do not stroll into the store but we barrel through the crowd, wielding our little basket like a machete, cutting a path through the shopper's dazed crowds.
My husband and I are a well oiled, food procuring machine. Words need not be spoken, just the occasional soft grunt of satisfaction as wedge after wedge of good cheese bounces into the bottom of our basket. Aged Vermont cheddar, garlic herb gouda...I try not to cry when Alan picks up the Gruyere.
I try not to.
But the glistening shine isn't all from the holiday music piped in over the speakers. It's the desire for cheese kick boxing the hold on my hunger restraints.
We hurry through the store, we nab two containers of hummus, double back for a bag of mixed arugula salad greens and our grins are fierce as we near the finish line. Perhaps the other shoppers see it as well because they part, a wave of humanity as we zero in on the freshly made bread at the other end of the store.
Is there a clock ticking? There must be. Time is a factor, perhaps the gnawing aches in our belly really is a beast that will be unleashed at the stroke of absolute famish-ness if we do not hurry.
Every thing is going well, going perfectly until the bread display looms before us. Maybe it's because we are delirious with hunger or maybe it's because the multiple store trips is putting us into a catatonic like state but deciding on what bread to get suddenly seems monumental.
Garlic or olive? Garlic or olive? Garlic or olive?
The words do not just replay over and over on a loop in my head but we are muttering them out loud, clutching our little basket to our chest and staring with un-blinking eyes at the damnably delicious bread choices. Damn Trader Joes, why did there have to be so many choices? We want bread. Any bread, we are hunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngry, and the devil in our ear chuckles. Thinking it is close to winning, pointing an invisible finger at the closest Del Taco.
What happened next....was it a Christmas miracle? Maybe. It was amazing. Our control was crumbling, our fingers trembling, our mouths watering and our brains locked in the impossible decision of Garlic or olive bread when it happened.
IT happened.
It couldn't have been any more amazing of a moment if a fricking angel had swooped down on a beam of golden light and pointed a glowing finger in the right direction for us.
Rosemary.
We sighed, together, synchronized and our smiles were genuine and relieved. Rosemary bread. Peeking out from behind the garlic, of course. Rosemary bread. The world made sense once more and our bodies kicked back into gear.
I don't remember standing in line, paying for our purchases or carting them out to the car. My next conscious memory is with a mouth full of cilantro pepper hummus, a hunk of rosemary bread in one hand, a ripped open bag of lettuce cradled between my knees and the whimpering of our cravings dying down to mere purrs of delight.
I am sure we paid for our goods, no Trader Joes' store cops beat on our windows and demanded we give the cheese back.
We traded the wedge of garlic herb back and forth eating it in the most satisfying way possible, gnawing off hunks of it with our teeth. The hummus we of course attack with our car spoons. The ever present pair of cheap metal spoons that we store in the dash for when we buy pints of ice cream or cases such as this when hummus is around and it's a food needin' emergency. For a while, nothing but companionable silence and intense chewing filled the car.
There was no need to talk, nothing to say and words would just take up valuable mouth space we were reserving for bread.
Cars came and went around us in the parking lot. We watched with mild interest as some one came by rolling away all the abandoned shopping carts. The lights of the neighboring store cast a red glow over the hood of the car and it was lovely.
Almost romantic.
A parking lot picnic.