Have a Beer. Or Two...

Yesterday I walked over to Maxi Dispensa, which is a Wal Mart affiliate store.  It’s a grocery store, plus some limited clothing, electronics, hardware, etc.  Even the grocery offerings are limited.  I guess I’ve gotten spoiled by how much Del Corral has grown as a “super market” now.  But Maxi Dispensa is great to buy a few things until my next trip to Corral.

So, anyway, yesterday I walked over to Maxi Dispensa to pick up just a few things we needed in the house.  I put my empty backpack in the little lockers and grabbed a roller basket for my groceries.  The produce at Maxi can be hit or miss, but yesterday it seemed generally okay.  A watermelon, a cantaloupe, a few oranges, tomatoes, some green peppers, blah, blah, blah.

I made my way over to the checkout lines and found the open one. I was just getting in line when a gentleman got in line right behind me.  I looked and saw that he only had 4 cans in his hands so I asked him if that was all he had.  Then I offered to let him go in front of me.

As the guy passed in front of me, I saw that his 4 cans were actually 4 cans of beer.  Yes, in Honduras you can buy single cans of beer at the grocery stores.  So, the guy puts his beer on the conveyor and I saw that, not only was it beer, but it was three cans of Port Royal and one can of Barena.  It struck me as a bit odd that he had three cans of one brand and one can of another, but, to each their own.

I started putting my food on the conveyor, and then someone got in line behind me.  He had a pretty full roller basket, so there wasn’t even a thought to let him go first.  Then I saw it: the guy behind me reached down into his basket and pulled out a bottle of beer.  A Coors Light.  He then proceeded to open it and chug, all while waiting in line.  I don’t think it took him more than 5 or 6 seconds to drain that bottle.  Wow!  That’s one thirsty dude.

As he finished the beer, I was standing there wondering what he was going to do with the empty.  It wouldn’t have surprised me a bit if he had just put the empty bottle on the shelves among the candy bars.  He didn’t.  He put the bottle back in his basket.  Then he started putting his stuff on the conveyor, behind mine.  That’s when I saw that he had 2 six-packs of Coors Light.  Well, not exactly.  He had 10 bottles of Coors Light.  The second six-pack container only had 4 bottles in it – and one of those was empty.

The girl at the register started ringing up my things and I started bagging them.  Then I saw the guy behind me open up a 2^nd beer and down it, almost as quickly as he had the first.  Was he trying to get a buzz on before he even walked out of the store?  He placed that empty bottle in the container, as well.

I was done paying and still bagging my things when the girl started to ring up “beer guy”.  The girl asked him how many beers (as if she couldn’t see them right in front of her) and he said, “Six.  Uh, no, eight.”  Then the girl asked, “Ten?”  “Yes.  Ten.”  I guess technically he was correct that he only had eight beers, since he had already consumed two of them.

I finished bagging my groceries while he was still checking out.  Then I dragged my heavy bags – remember the watermelon and cantaloupe, plus two bottles of Coke for Rosy – over to the counter behind the registers.  I retrieved my backpack and loaded it with the groceries, careful to place the tomatoes in such a way that they wouldn’t be crushed by the two large fruits.

By the time I got outside and started walking home, “beer guy” was already gone.  No doubt he was on his third beer…