By Mike J Watson
It was late night and I stood in the grocery, swaying ever so slightly as I stared at the yogurt section. I love yogurt. Intensely. Something about the fermented dairy product’s creamy texture, wide variety of flavors and even further varied levels of funkiness really made me crave it on a pretty regular basis. So much so that on this evening, this particular evening following a very warm sunny wonderful day in June, after a few drinks at home while watching my favorite Muppets movie (an ever-changing opinion of mine, by which here is meant Muppet Treasure Island). In the midst of a particularly believable moment of Tim Curry performing at puppets, it occurred to me that nothing in my world could be any more important to me than to simply walk across the street and attain my favorite snack.
Now this is not a problem, and I sincerely hope that I am not framing it to be. The truth is that the convenience of my living situation has long meant that any time I am in want of any sort of foodstuffs I can simply walk over no matter my levels of intoxication. I live in a small apartment directly across the street from a grocery store known for its enormous selection of items, and as a result I have spent a great many hours half to full stoned staring at one or another snackable section. Though, as you might expect from what I have said thus far, the yogurt section to the rear of the store is a place I have spent an enormous amount of time.
So to return to where I had begun, I stood, mouth slightly agape staring at the immaculately arranged selection of tiny tubs of yogurt. Going left to right, aligned in columns according to the bacteria culture’s country of origin it was Greek, American, Australian, Icelandic (which they referred to as Skyr) and, my new favorite and fresh to my grocery aisle, Rek’kual. This was a nation I had not yet heard of even vaguely, and my soggy mind was loath to spend any time googling it when I could be making the absolutely vital decision on which culture and flavor. Lately I’d been favoring blueberry or strawberry, but one of the Rek’kual flavors had caught my attention while standing there. If I’m being completely truthful, the fact that the flavor was titled “Farmlands Lay Salted” did not, in any way, occur to me as strange. Marketing being what it is and cans of water being sold in heavy metal packaging, I was desensitized.
No, what was truly out of place with all of this, this section with which I had spent so much time, was that there was movement within one of the containers of leftmost, eye-level Rek’kual styles of yogurt. It was immediately next to a particularly good flavor of Australian yogurt with caramel and chocolate (I had a phase with the chocolate flavors the previous fall). This particular yogurt had a blue container, with a black lid on it which was slowly wiggling.
Had I had a few too many drinks? That shouldn’t cause hallucinations, right? That’s just something they put in cartoons from the 40s or something. No, I was literally watching movement from within this small, six-ounce container. I glanced back and forth down the aisle to see if I was being observed or being messed with or some such, but the aisle was completely empty.
Then the lid popped slightly and I saw a blue, slimy something, and, as I’m sure you yourself are thinking presently, my first thought was that the yogurt had come to life, that old joke about old food gaining sentience somehow becoming fact instead of absurd fiction.
But worry not, for I did not immediately leave that aisle, though not for lack of fear. In my then-current state, my priority was my stomach, and the slight increase in my pulse watching what appeared to be a single, drinking-straw sized tube thread its way out from under the lid was overpowered by my desire to eat caramel and chocolate yogurt. Australian this time. The worm-like straw shape was venturing further beyond its tiny tub touching things around it, looking like an antenna or a slug.
Happily, it was reaching to my right, while the object of my desire was on the left, and I reached warily for the small tub of caramel and chocolate delight. My hand touched the cool, brightly-colored lid and I withdrew with my prize. Frowning at the straw, I went home and I finished what I would consider Tim Curry’s best performance.
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Mike J Watson writes, hikes and brews in Utah where he lives with his wife, daughter, and deeply stupid but lovable pets.
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