Condomania

Trojan, Ramses, Magnum, Sheik!

–Bart Simpson, The Simpsons’ THOH III, “Dial ‘Z’ for Zombies“

So hey, check this one out.

I had to take Anthony to the doctor today since he seemed to be coming down with a cold or something. It turned out to be nothing serious so the doctor didn’t even give a prescription for his ailment. But since we’re heading to Las Vegas next week (more on that later), we figured it would better to be safe than sorry and have him checked out.

Despite not requiring a prescription, I agreed to take Anthony down to CVS to buy him a small pull-back car since we tend to do this when we do have to go there for prescribed medications. There are plenty choose from and naturally, being the dawdler he is, Anthony couldn’t decide which one to buy.

So as I stood there waiting for him to pick the one car that would make his life complete for the next 10 minutes (and forgotten soon after that), a guy walked into the place and approached the cashier. He was agitated and in a hurry, and appeared to be dressed for a day at the office. It was 10:15 am.

“Where are your water-soluble lubricants,” the dude asked hastily and not removing his sunglasses. The cashier, seemingly unfamiliar with any of those words, involuntarily asked him to repeat his request with a simple “Huh?”

Dude grunted and slowed down his rate of speech slightly.

“Where are your water-soluble lubricants?” Again, the cashier had a blank stare on her face. Dude was getting even more agitated.

“Look, is there a manager here that I can talk to about this,” he then asked. By now, he was all huffy and puffy. The cashier went over to ask the manager who was on the phone. Dude had enough.

“CONDOMS! WHERE ARE YOUR CONDOMS?”

“Oh, Aisle 11 near the back of the store,” the cashier replied. Dude then made a beeline straight to Aisle 11. I continued to wait for Anthony to pick out that one special car.

A few minutes later, Dude comes back to the cashier. You thought he was pissed off before…

“Is there ANYBODY in this store that knows where ANYTHING is or do I have to go somewhere else?” The cashier proceeded to tell him that what he was looking for was definitely in Aisle 11. This was obvious by the sign dangling above it which read “Family Planning.”

But it didn’t matter. Dude had had enough and without uttering anything else, he flew out of that store and back to his car.

Shortly afterwards, Anthony decided on the one car–finally. We paid for it and then left the store. But ah, I wasn’t going home just yet. I decided I’d be nosy and drive around the lot and see which car Dude had gotten into.

And there he was, sitting in the driver’s seat and speaking with a woman–dressed well enough for the office but not for a night on the town–in the passenger’s seat. Now I’m not trying to pin anything on this guy, but several thoughts raced through my mind. And no, they didn’t hurt my brains.

• It was 10:15 am. While there’s no definite right time to buy a condom, either you have some on hand or you just don’t do anything. But 10:15 am and by a guy who was in a hurry? Doesn’t that seem rather…strange?
• Why so agitated, man? Ya hiding something or what?
• If, in fact, this guy was cheating, then I applaud his efforts to prevent the spread of or risk contracting STDs, or avoiding an unwanted pregnancy. But seriously, dude, it’s 2010 and buying condoms hasn’t been embarrassing for decades. Hell, we even have local stores named Condomania (which inspired the title of this post) and Condom Revolution that were designed to make buying condoms and other things easier. No shame, man.

So it seems that this guy’s quest to buy condoms ended up leaving him a bit limp. And I would have hated to be the person sitting next to him when he got back to the office.