The grocery store menace

I am a menace in grocery stores.

I know this even as I eye a gap between a slow-moving cart full of toilet paper and Spiderman Squishmallows, and a random foursome chatting in front of a potted fir on a busy Saturday at Costco.

I zig when I shop and zag for no reason at all except that I like to walk fast.

My husband won’t shop with me. I’m too aggressive with the cart, and, apparently, oblivious to the carnage I leave in my wake.

I don’t mean to be rude. I just get a little twitchy when I have to slooooow dooooown.

It isn’t just grocery stores either.

I treated my family to a recent epiphany I had as I hustled through a crowded terminal at O’Hare. It wasn’t a stress-sprint. I had plenty of time to make my flight. I just wanted to stretch my legs after a long flight.

“I just realized another reason I love airplane travel,” I texted them. “It’s the only place it’s socially acceptable to sprint through a crowd.”

I thought about all of this yesterday during a quick pre-game trip to the grocery store.

I hit a road block in the produce department and quickly planned an end-around an older couple, who had stationed themselves in front of a very green banana display. Just as I made my move, a gray sweat-shirted blur whizzed past.

I recognized something familiar in her gait.

“Mom?” I called.

The whirling dervish momentarily slowed.

“Laura?”

And there she was. The alpha-speedster. The source of all my twitchiness. The only person I know who whips through a grocery store faster than I do.

“I need cereal and milk,” she said, and took off.

I trotted after her.

What can I say? It’s genetic.