As I was leaving preschool today (for the record, I had decided to chat up the other mom, but we were miles away from each other in a sea of crayons and backpacks, so I’ll have to try again some other day), a mom tried to run me over in the parking lot. I’m sure it was a jealousy thing, based on my supreme awesomeness and lovable nature. I mean, really, I’m competition. She must be a cheerleader. Luckily, I slid over the top of my minivan and landed safely on the other side, where I proceeded to check out her license plate and make voodoo hand gestures at her. She was scared, I can feel it. Just wait until Friday, when I don’t hold the door open for her.

Ahhh, preschool.

After leaving the gauntlet preschool, the girls and I headed to the grocery store. Our grocery store has the hand-held scanner things that make grocery shopping a breeze. Its probably not the store that actually uses “breeze” in its commercials, but whatever. I love these things, because I only have to scan items, put them in the bags (oh, and I actually remembered my reusable shopping bags, big points for me!) and then carry them home via the spyvan. We enter the store and are all excited to get some veggies (well, I was excited). Until I meet…

The produce scale designed by morons.

It has six convenient “buttons” for things like tomatoes, bananas and a bunch of other shit I wasn’t buying. My first produce item was avocados (because, what else are you going to eat if you’re stranded on a desert for years? avocados). The deal is that you have to print off a label to scan, so you have to find the actual item you’re buying on the 3×3 touch screen from hell, designed by morons.

I went all through the vegetables listed on the scale. No avocados. I think, “what am I missing here?” and I try again, and again… and again. Right about now, you would probably be behind me screaming, “AVOCADOS ARE AN EFFING FRUIT YOU MORON!” but I don’t hear you because I’m determined to understand the moron language of the scale. (Note to self: no two morons speak the same language.) Finally, I decide, on a whim, to look at the fruit section of the scale… under “tropical,” next to bananas. Yeah, avocados are fruit. I’m sure you knew that. I knew it, too, but I was trying to be moron… and succeeding, brilliantly.

I send myself a note to blog about this (dork), and we move on to the rest of the produce. We hit dairy, juice, etc., and I realize that I want to make tacos tonight. I have nothing, except avocados, to make tacos a reality. Back to produce we go! We need shredded lettuce (I’m just not a shredder, k?) and tomatoes. Tomatoes, if you remember, are right on the main part of the Wonder Scale. Easy peasy, right? Nope.

You see, I chose the generic tomatoes, not the tomatoes on special. The “special” tomatoes were brilliantly displayed on the scale’s menu in a feat of moronic marketing madness. After my avocado experience, I gently lay the tomatoes on the scale and push… oh yes, you see where this is going. I refuse to go through that absurd process ever again. I pushed “fruit.”

I see no tomatoes.

GAAH!

Tomatoes ARE a fruit. Ketchup is NOT a vegetable. I am watching my brain cells slip quietly out of my ears, onto the floor, creating a life-size replica of Patrick from Spongebob. The girls are laughing at me. The store is in stitches, pointing and pissing their collective pants. If the logic that puts avocados in the fruit department doesn’t carry over into the whole tomato-not-a-vegetable train of thought, then this world is a complete asshole.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.

I take a deep breath and push “vegetables.”

There are six different tomato varieties.

Fuck you, produce department.