HALLOWEEN THROWDOWN AT THE DISCOUNT SUPER-STORE: FLAY VS. DARKON

Does Bobby know his empire is tacitly heralding an energy drink?!

There will always be vague concerns about shopping at the discount super-store--especially where food or dry-goods are concerned: the clientele, for one, quickly followed by the Eurasia-sized parking lot of doom, blurry expiration dates, botulism, and of course weevils.

I remember my grandmother opening a sad box of commercial fortune cookies of unsure origins, filled-to-disappointment with a horrifying swarm of little horned creatures.

Still, packs of buckwheat soba, little vials of saffron threads, espresso (in fact very good), herring tins, shimmering bottles of rapeseed oil--these are gem-like enough to brave perfectly ordinary cart-ramming folk I need to wash off when I get home.
After all, here in Vastland, there are supposed hermetic seals and boxes within boxes and stamps of number 9's approval.

I remind myself that this is not like an ex-college roommate of mine who shopped only in the discount meat section of the grocery store ("I am not Discount Meat Mike, I am not Discount Meat Mike"). I am a mom who is responding to the economic crisis, and the need to liberate more of the family budget for my wanton cafe breves and Retin A--you know: the dribs and drabs funneled off for The Post-Baby Mind and Body Treatments & Potions Slush Fund.

No matter how much money I have or lack, the truth is I love the hunt (I always have, and thank you mom), navigation made more complex by the introduction of strollers, slings, the sands of the breastfeeding hourglass & willful little personalities other than my own.

I love stores full of dusty, forlorn boxes and oddities--like these enormous cans of "Freek Juice," "Ace of Shakes," "Mongrel" and "Whooopaz!"--seizure-like nods to the orginal Red Bull--I have found today. Every single can and every single brand tastes exacty the same: like Sweetarts, shame, loose expectation, and rivulets of sweat.

It seems that simply adding Taurine to a beverage sanctions the use of bigger, more frightening labels, with outrageous if intriguingly magnanamous claims. "44 ounces--two ounces free!--6,000 mg of caffeine will make you keen like a howler monkey and forget your home address for six consecutive weeks!!!"

Taurine is something they give detoxing alcoholics going through withdrawal, an intermediary step to staving off the DTs (though good grief, I am not making any medical claims here). Something which mends frayed nervous cabling--and yet here we are, adding caffeine in contradictory if not lethal amounts.

And now I am exactly like Lightning McQueen (having a 2-year old boy I have seen Cars over 500 times and in what feels like the same endless day) grasping the concept of The Cozy Cone Motel:

Lighting: "Oh I get it, these rooms all are shaped like cones, which of course, cars usually try to avoid, but now we're going to stay in them."
Sally [speeds away]: "Figure that out all on your own, didja?

That being said, how could I forgo a find such as "Joker Juice" with its merrily evil orange and black can, fortuitous bounty for my kids' Halloween birthday party? Aside from the fact that I adore orange in any form, frankly I just need to see what will happen. One of the reasons I had children was to amuse myself.

The no-sugar 20 0z. Throwdown?--another 60 cents to shamelessly amuse myself. If Bobby Flay isn't man enough to come to my house to challenge me to a Fritter Throwdown any time soon, then surely I can drink some approximation of him down in one Taurine & Caffeine-riddled quaff.

Shopping with a 4 and 2-year old in the late afternoon, Dante-esque circle of No More Naps means our limited window of time is closing, and the whining and pie-eyed looks tell me it's about ten minutes away from slamming down on the fingers I hope will soon be wrapped around my car keys, with any luck. I muscle the cart full of these cans, linens, black sesame seeds, and sheer hope toward a check-out line where I will face the inevitable shopper participation required of me when using a credit card: "Did your cashier greet you today?"

Does he ever.
Too late to retreat, I see and hear the giant behind the register: golden, reddish mane streaming, ashy incongrous at-home blond streaks on either side of the meaty face, which he shakes to the side exactly the way one would if one had been slow-framing Val Kilmer-affecting-Jim Morrision for oh, about 8 years now. In that instant, I am completely certain he has a homemade catapult in his backyard, proudly, "accidentally visible" through fraying green chain-link.

"Here!!!!," he bellows and gestures widely, "LET me do my maniacal laugh for you! Boo wah ha ha hah ah haaaaaa!"

And so it begins: the unsolicited exchange I provoke with waiters, sales clerks and passersby, simply by being me and have apparently passed to my children, who look...intrigued, frightened and are momentarily roused out of sniveling.

He picks up and peers at the can of Throwdown: "Ho, ho, hooooo...wait!--wrong seasonal festivity, M'lady! [he chortles and strokes his portly sides with Santa-ly emphasis] What do we have heeeeere?" (what if I were buying Tampax, Rid, four boxes of Fleets enemas and a bowie knife?)" He leans in. "I like Bobby Flay--you know, the native war-cultures tipped their arrows with a serum made from hot peppers and LSD. Boo wah ha ha hah ah haaaaaa!"

I have to give Aslan some points. We just had an entire conversation and I understood the leap--from the word Throwdown to poison-tipping--and I never said a word.

If he tells me something like "You know, 97.3 % of all primitive females desperately wanted to bone the australopithecine predescessor of Bobby Flay" with enough hayseedic, 24-year-old, smoke-curled authority, I may have to believe him.

Instead, he gives me the critical piece of information I already knew, one maw on the plastic bag, which is already shredding, thinner than a garlic skin, proudly claiming to be recycled. He hands it to me knowingly, "I do The Renaissance Festival, and a Medieval Gaming Society, so...[stage whisper, modestly] I'm really good at modulating my voice."

My children have been stunned into silence, and before my lips can even put together the rubbery sound of wonder I know is in there, fruit-gum-snapping Mandy arrives on the scene: his understudy, his costumer, his relief. Apparently, we were his last appearance for the day. There is the predictable blue eyeshadow and some sort of speech-impediment--or maybe it's drugs? Oh dear lord, I have it now--she's managed to sit on a stray arrowhead in the Lysol-smelling locker-room.

"Oooooooooh! Your kids are so cuuuute!!!" she squeals and thrusts onto my son's head the somewhat fragile straw hat we are saving for our Farmer Alfalfa costume. "OH. MY. GOD. He can wear the hat OUT of the store!!!!!"
He's weakened by fatigue, but that hat will be no match for El Destructo if I let him have it now.

"Um..." I say. "I wouldn't do that, 'Smash' is his middle name."

Dead, green-eyed seriousness. "Shut up, that is so cool!--is that really his middle name?"

Aslan rolls his eyes at me. Mirth, nothing short of mirth at some secret we share. He changes out the cash register drawer and shuts it with a flourish like he is shooing along oxen.

We both sigh. I don't know. I don't know who has won here.

In the parking lot, the cans of Joker Juice are heavier than expected.