There's no other store like Aldi Part 2

This whole Aldi's thing was brought to mind the other day, when my friend Ann-not-the-call-girl-Ann was almost arrested there.

Ann is about as sunny as you can be. She has a little nuclear family that I tell her looks like those little dollhouse families like The Littles. You know the ones. They all look like they belong together, like a matched set. Heck Ann's family even IS on the small side. Line 'em up, and they go together like peas and carrots, as Forrest Gump would say.

Ann says that however peaceful her life looks, she really lives on Wisteria Lane with all of the other Desperate Housewives. I think, compared to Utter Chaos, it looks pretty mild, except for that whole
escort service thing. Ann, however, always says "the Utters do the most interesting things. Yeah, right. We're always skating on the side of madness, but at least I can say that none of us have done time.

Well Ann went to Aldi's the other day, looking for a deal. She was probably looking for a ham, because when she gets worried about something, she starts stocking up the freezer. When Hurricane Ike was rumbling around last summer, and that whole area was being evacuated, Ann called me and said "don't you just feel like you need to go buy a big ham? Like one of those spiral cut ones? And maybe a turkey?" Uh, no. But that's Ann's response to stress, and if you ask me, it's a mighty fine one. She'll never starve in a crisis, that's for sure.

So she goes to Aldi's, and gets some produce, amongst other things. Gets up to the checkout with her cart full 'o deals, and the cashier starts ringing her up. Stops abruptly when ::gasp:: she finds a cucumber tucked in with the bag of apples that she was ringing. Ann quickly explained that she just put it in there to keep it from rolling around in the cart, but the cashier wasn't buying that one bit. Chewed her out about trying to steal the cucumber, till Ann was ready to put it back.

Handcuffs on register 6 please. We've got ourselves a customer in a pickle.

She ended up convincing the cashier that she really wasn't a thief -- heck, she married to a dentist, for heaven's sake. The woman goes to Yarn conventions for fun, but she had to talk her way out of Aldi's without having the police called, and it was no small feat. She's afraid to go back there now, so I guess she'll be finding her Evacuation Ham somewhere else next time, lest the family be entertaining the refugees whilst the mom is in the clink. The irony of the underscore-less Ann being arrested while the underscored Ann is roaming free does not escape me. Nor would it escape Mr. Little, who looks strangely androgynous, but who is now available on ebay, from Kiddieland, sans Mrs Little, who is probably doing time in the big house. Mr Little now is a devout shopper of Kroger, and the kids haven't touched ham since Mommy went up the river.