Now's A Bad Time

I worked in a grocery store for 4 years. I was in film school studying how to tell a story and at the same time I was moving up in the ranks in a major grocery store chain. I was your friendly neighborhood produce guy who would let you sample that weird looking fruit that you just squeezed so hard it bruised. I would tell you with a warm smile that it’s okay when your child drops a bottle of vinegar or oil on the ground (both delicious on fresh bread, terrible to clean up). That whole time I felt like I was watching people who didn’t know they were being watched. I realized in my time there that when people are alone you really see a strange side of them. I wonder, do my loved ones leave empty yogurt cups on a stack of avocados? Or, does that grown man’s mother know he sticks his bare hand in a bin of peanuts? I’m telling you, these are average, functioning members of society who seem to completely let go of all social norms. It’s not even in private, they look me in the eye when they do it! I wonder what chain of events or what part of their life led them to believe that that behavior is normal let alone appropriate for that situation.

Then that film school education of mine kicked in and I got an idea for a movie. A short movie, where two average members of society have absolutely no sense of appropriate behavior in a situation where its more noticeable than a grocery store. Because honestly if I made a movie about all the weird things I’ve caught people doing, I don’t think it would work because the audience would go “Well that’s a little unrealistic”. So I put these guys in a funeral. Where they are being just as ridiculous and self involved as you are when you think nobody is watching in a grocery store.