Strange Things and Weirdos I

Starting tonight, I will be posting the weird shit that I see here in Berkeley. Kalifornia has more than its share of weirdos, but this city is insane. The rudeness, the apathy--that's Kalifornia. The weirdos and the occurrances that you double take at, those are Berkeley. This town is insane, from the dog with white mice crawling all over it to the 65 year old Jewish man with a bad temper and Turret's syndrome who is repeatedly thrown out of the post office. So we begin our saga.

I am walking through the North Berkeley safeway about 11:45pm, 15 minutes before closing. North Berkeley is the home of the super-rich, super-liberal, racist, xenophobic, arrogant and ultimately eccentric white people that live in Berkeley. Since there's so many white people, it's a good bet that they have a large percentage of serial killers. The crime in general is pretty low here, but the weirdo ratio is way up there. Anyway, I'm in the Safeway at this part of town. It's jammed with stuff, things falling off the shelves, I hate this store. It is unfortunately close and cheap, and being poor, I have to go there.

Walking to the check out lane, of course the only one that is open, as usual, when I notice a guy who's just checked out going through his groceries at the next check out stand over. He had gotten his stuff, and moved aside to rummage through his bags. No big deal, this guy doesn't look that weird; he'd pass for a physicist back home. He is maybe 55 with white-gray hair and sort of balding, wearing one of those crushable hats, some mundane collared shirt, a belt and some slacks. Clean-shaven, doesn't look dirty or anything, he appears to be a normal customer.

Until he pulls out a bottle of pasta sauce, opens it, and begins chugging it. This wans't Ragu Old World Style, either. It's the Chunky Safeway Select with Garlic. No shit. I almost choked watching him. Everyone in line was staring at him. He took a break, and looked at us all. All eyes quickly diverted to the soft-core porn of Maxim and Cosmo on the magazine racks, and the clerks went back to pretending they were really interested in the advertisements printed on the paper bags even though they see them every 2 seconds. Then he tilts his head back and keeps on chugging. He must have stood there for a good 5 minutes. I was done with my purchase and about to pull away from the counter when he left.

I think the cashier summed it up best after the man left with: "That man had some mighty powerful thirst."