“Weighing In”
UNSOLICITED ADVICE from Andrew Freeman
Make every effort to enjoy your friends. Time with your friends, imaginary or real, will be a good investment in your social skills.
Late this spring I spent an evening out with my friend Chet. We shared a beer at his apartment, then went out for dinner – enjoying, to the extent that we could, a meal which included an uninvited fruit fly and some spoiled cream curdling in a cup of tea. After finishing what we could choke down of our meals, we decided on an ice cream chaser.
The nearest grocery store is a bit of a dive and usually filled with loud people. The coolers are never cold enough to keep the ice cream hard, the aisles are usually sticky and you practically have to butcher the animals yourself in the deli section. Luckily, however, very few customers die fighting over the last box of chocolate-covered dessert snacks, since there are always two armed police officers at the door just beyond the checkout.
We got our ice cream and headed to the checkout. As we stood in line behind the guy buying his 36-can econo-pack of beer, I laughingly suggested to Chet that I was in the mood for a single grape. I wonder what the cashier would say.
Chet was immediately exuberant. “Do it. Do it! Go get one, I dare you. Go get a grape. I’ll die. You have to. Go. Go! Come on. Go. You have to.”
I have to? Have to? You should understand that Chet is about 5'2" and weighs nearly as much as an average watermelon. In other words, he really poses no significant threat. Nevertheless, I went and got a single red grape. The idea was funny to me. Still, I had no real intention of buying it until I raised the grape to my lips, and Chet’s eyes began to well up. Not wanting to let a dear friend down, I resolved to forge ahead with the purchase.
At this point, there was no longer any line left in front of me. “Next.”
I’m a regular in the express lane and accustomed to a small grocery bill, but now with only one item, a tiny one -- a grape -- I felt a sense of panic, the desperate need to have more. I reached for the ice cream, but Chet refused to turn over the pint of pistachio. The heavy-set young woman at the register looked puzzled as she asked, “How are you doing tonight?” I told her I was fine and returned the nicety as I slowly and gently placed the grape on the scale, like it was a priceless Ukrainian Easter egg.
She pulled her head back and opened her eyes wide. I looked back at her confidently, pretending her shock was approval that I had chosen not simply a good healthy grape, but THE grape, the single best grape that ever was. I nodded to her, implying in my own little reality that we agreed: This grape was the one.
I leaned over the register and, pointing at Chet, stage-whispered, “He said that I should just eat it without paying.”
She responded loudly enough for everyone to hear, “WELL, YOU SHOULDA ATE IT!”
I pretended she was kidding.
She waited. “You really want me to weigh it?” I nodded. She reluctantly turned on the scale. It read 0.01. She said, “It weighed a pound. You happy?”
Happy? Yes. I was happy.
I continued to laugh and clutch my stomach as she recklessly rolled the grape down the metal slide. “That’s food, you know!?” I said.
She started to grab the ice cream from Chet, who was crying. I intervened.
Looking down at my lonely little grape, “Can you double-bag that? It’s a little sticky.”
She was laughing too now, and having a good time with me. In her most condescending tone, “Paper or plastic?”
“Paper.”
She double-bagged it. “Go!” She ordered me out of the store.
“But how much is it?” She started reaching for the ice cream again.
“.......hmmmm.......a penny.” I took out my credit card. Low and serious, “Go.”
“You know what... I shouldn’t really waste two bags. Just give me one of those big orange ‘PAID’ stickers.”
By this point we are all laughing, the cashier, Chet, the two guys behind us, the cashier in the next aisle, both police officers and I.
The grape had become far too infamous simply to pop into my mouth, and those stickers don’t come off cleanly, so the grape made it back to the apartment. Chet stepped outside for a cigarette, and I scooped the ice cream into two roughly equal portions. I put the grape on the cutting board, slit it lengthwise and set half on top of each ice cream mound.
Chet stepped back in, and, looking at the grape-adorned sundae, curled his upper lip. Again I had a sense of panic, I mean, the grape was fun and all, but he couldn’t have imagined that we would keep it until it matured to a raisin.
His thoughts, though, were far from my own. He snapped up his dish and unceremoniously used his index finger to flick the halfgrape from its creamy perch into the garbage. As I walked past the discarded fruit half, an epiphany: I should have gotten a cherry.
"Weighing In" was originally performed at the Center's Open Mic Night and is published with permission of the author. Light-hearted, original work may be performed at Open Mic or submitted to centerpiece@lgbtqcenter.org. Δ