As is usually the case, what tends to happen when you try to avoid one evil is that another evil will make itself known. Perhaps an even eviler evil. That was certainly the scenario for thirty-something Madeline Erickson when she thought she was sidestepping the lunchtime rush of the town center’s grocery store in favor of the more off-the-beaten-path, larger version of the chain just outside of town. A location that was easier for her to reach because she had chosen to bike there—even though it meant going inside while sporting her bike shorts and tank top.

Things seemed promising enough about her intuition…at first. As they so often do…at first. But give anything enough time, and it will no longer seem promising. And that’s exactly what happened once Madeline got inside the store and caught instant sight of the overarching demographic inside. One that was decidedly hunched and gray. Of course, she realized too late. Only the elderly would have enough time during the lunch hour to venture out this much farther. To spare the time on shopping in this wide-open space, this commercial wilderness. After all, the elderly liked to take things real slow when it came to shopping—not just because of their slowness in general, but because, for many, it was the event of the day. And feeling confined in the smaller location of the store in the town center was not conducive to enjoying that event. Made things feel hot, oppressive…rushed. Here at the bigger iteration of the store, they could roam at their zombie-esque pace with “like-minded” individuals. That is to say, those with not much mind left at all.

Seeing them all lurching around like that from the moment she entered should have clued Madeline in that it was a prudent idea to abandon the mission. To just leave. But, unfortunately, one of the items on her list that day was a box of tampons. Something that couldn’t be ignored in her current state of bloodiness. Shoving paper towels up there alone wasn’t going to cut it for today’s heavy flow. She had to forge on with the originally intended plan. Much to her extreme discomfort. But then, perhaps, compared to all the other people here, she knew nothing of what that word actually meant. After all, part of the reason these people were lumbering around like they’d just been shot was a result of their pain. The kind of chronic pain that only the elderly population is truly well-acquainted with (well, them and maybe professional athletes—but it’s hard to feel sympathy for anyone that’s paid millions of dollars for their pain). Trying to bear this in mind to fulfill her shopping list ambitions, Madeline took a big gulp and tried to cringe and bear it as she darted in and out of the slowpoke hordes like she was in some kind of video game. Maybe Pitfall!

At one point, her progress was extremely held up as a result of being blockaded by a gray-haired (obviously) lady who had firmly planted her entire body in front of the refrigerator section where the yogurt was stocked. It seemed either she couldn’t decide on or couldn’t remember which yogurt to get, leaving her paralyzed—in a gaping fugue state, of sorts. Madeline feared tapping her on the shoulder because it might give her a heart attack, and she knew that trying to utter an “excuse me” would go unheard. What else could she do but wait a few minutes and then finally give in to just sticking her arm right past the oblivious woman and grabbing what she needed?

Alas, that was only to be the first obstacle. One she had hoped would be her last, and really, it was classifiable only as a minor hiccup. But when she got to the least daunting cash register, having made incredible haste considering all the slowness around her aimed at making her just as slow, the biggest obstacle arrived. Already trapped in a long line with people in front of her who seemed to be buying groceries for the entire month rather than a few essentials for the day, she could feel a hovering presence behind her that prompted her to look more closely out of the corner of her eye. What she saw was a hunched-over woman. So hunched that she was looking at the ground all the time rather than anything or anyone at eye level. Madeline supposed she couldn’t help being all up in her personal space due to this hunchedness. She briefly untensed now that she knew the hovering presence wasn’t ominous…or so she thought.

But after only a few seconds of filing away the “presence” out of her “things to be annoyed by” category—focusing instead on the endless scanning of other people’s items that kept the queue at a standstill—the woman had the audacity to mutter something to Madeline. That something, undoubtedly, was the request to go in front of her. Because, as an elderly person, you do whatever the hell you want. In your mind, you’ve earned the right (and, poetically enough, the same goes for youths). As far as Madeline could tell, the woman gave no reason for why she needed to cut in front of her, but Madeline presumed it was some urgency related to the rigors of being old (e.g., needing to go to the bathroom, being in physical agony and wanting to get back home, needing to take your meds and therefore also wanting to get back home, etc.). Knowing it wasn’t in her to refuse—however vexing the request—Madeline stepped aside. And that was when, out of nowhere, the woman summoned her husband, who was standing elsewhere, over to join her in her newly-secured position.

It would have been nothing more than an inconvenience up until that moment. But once the woman’s husband came around, it became both awkward and inconvenient. He kept ogling her without any form of self-censorship, and then insisting to his wife that she ought to go back ahead of them because she had far fewer items. His wife hissed something indecipherable back to him, her voice feeble and incomprehensible to Madeline. But, presumably, after enough years of their old age spent together, these two had relearned the other’s faint language. And what Madeline presumed the woman said to him was that they were giving up this new place in line only if it was pried from her cold, dead hands. In other words, Madeline had made her bed, and now she had to lie in it. The only thing was, it seemed that this woman’s husband wanted to quite literally lie in it with her. And it was grossing her the fuck out.

There was a time in Madeline’s life when she used to feel sympathy for such men. The lecherous codger type (on a related note, Madeline never saw the point of saying “old codger”—it was as repetitive as “nape of the neck.” A nape is a neck and a codger is old; it’s built into each word’s definition.). But she no longer had any such sympathy left inside of her. She realized that was their trick, their superpower. Getting younger women to pity them, thus tapping into an emotional “in” that, if capitalized on correctly, might even lead to a physical in (literally). She suddenly felt as though every older woman in the store was staring daggers at her. And it occurred to her to remember that she was wearing her form-accentuating bike shorts and flesh-exposing tank top. Every woman in here would say she had “asked for” this with her sartorial selection. But no, the only thing she had asked for was a relatively uncrowded store in which to buy the requisite items she needed to carry on with her day.

As the man kept ogling and bumbling, the checkout counter worker finally got through scanning all of their many superfluous purchases. With the help of a bagger, the couple at last tottered on, though not without a few more yearning looks flashed Madeline’s way on the part of the husband. She vowed to herself that that would be the last time she would ever concede to letting an elderly woman go in front of her in line. Because you never knew if she might have a prurient husband lying in wait somewhere to pop up next to her and make things even more unpleasant.

Outside of the store, Madeline unlocked her bike, putting the lock into her backpack along with the other minor groceries (and “feminine products”) she had gotten. Mounting her bike and starting to ride away, she caught sight of the same elderly couple still glacially getting into their car. The man caught sight of her—or rather, her ass in dem shorts—and started practically frothing at the mouth. Before Madeline turned away and continued riding, she got the sense that he might actually collapse to the ground. Death by sight of a non-elderly woman in his midst. Oh, what a base and cruel world it was. To women of every age.