Went to the grocery store tonight to pick up items for the present drive at work. I know it sounds like a chintzy place to go for prezzies, but I figure board games and Crayola markers and Play Doh sets are going to be be the same wherever you go. And apparently 1:00 a.m. is the only time I have free for shopping.

When I was in college, I thought nothing of going to the store in the early a.m. That was just what you did. Sometimes it was because we had nothing better to do. Sometimes it was because we really needed something (like chocolate chips and pastry dough to make chocolate croissants!). And once it was because I got superdrunk and passed out at 8 p.m., then woke up stone cold sober at 3 a.m., unable to sleep a wink more.

Back then, grocery store = our personal play ground. We used to lay on our bellies on the bottom rack of the cart and grab people's ankles, or page each other on the store's secret phone, calling out that there was an emergency in the diaper aisle. The store we went to had a huge Cookie Monster sign hanging over the bakery, and to this day I regret not stealing it (you just know that by now they have thrown it away, whereas I would have hugged it and loved it and named it George).

Anyway, being out late at night in parking lots never bothered me before, but mr rampy made such a fuss about me going alone to the store tonight that by the time I got there, I was genuinely freaking out and jumpy. I parked as close to the door as possible and made sure that I could see under the car before I approached it. Which is probably good policy just in general, but I don't like feeling uncomfortable.

Best grocery store story I ever heard: in high school one of my college friends was clowning around at the store with a bunch of her friends, and one of them (big guy) actually managed to climb into the seat of a cart and jam his legs through the little holes. They were pushing him around the store, and then security started chasing them, so they made for the parking lot. Right outside the door, they hit a bump and tumped the cart right over.

They kept going, leaving their friend to crawl across the asphalt, dragging the cart with him, howling "My legs! My legs!" until security apprehended him.