Chicken Soup For The Entire Line At Register Five

It's definitely cold and flu season.

I dragged myself to the grocery store today since I had nothing to drink except beer. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but beer is off the menu due to the heinous cold I have.

Ralph's decided to go with volume over pricing in selling their store-brand NyQuil substitute (medium bottle of NyQuil: $6.00, giant bottle of store brand: $3.50), and I found the last bottle of "cherry" flavor in the whole damn store.

I know some people (I'm thinking of a few Chicagoland residents right now) extol the virtues of the GREEEEEEEEEEN flavor of NyQuil, but I'm a taste wimp. That stuff is vile, and the "cherry" flavor knocks you out just as cold.

The store had set up a little "cold and flu season is here!" display with assorted remedies. It had been picked totally clean of every single store-brand item. God bless the cheap and/or anti-corporate people of my neighborhood.

And I got four of the last six cans of store-brand chicken soup (the Campbell's, oddly enough, was totally gone).

The only other people in line were other sick people and one crazy old artist-type with his hair dyed bright orange and his much younger helper giving him a tutorial on the basics of grocery shopping.

And now, after purchasing and putting away groceries, I need to lie down for about four hours.