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can't see to find the custard. Here I am, minding my own business, looking for a box of vanilla pudding in Zen-country, and I get accosted by the spawn of Satan who also happens to be having one helluva bad hair day. And since when does Satan need custard anyway? "

Bristling with righteous indignation, I turned and stiffly thrust the box forward for her to see. She leaned in. The wheels of the buggy rolled slightly and it looked as if she were about to read the label. But, then, faster than a blue-gill bass piercing the surface of a lake after a mosquito hawk, her arm shot forward and she snatched the box right out of my hand.

Thunderstruck by the sheer speed and velocity with which she ripped the box from me, I stood slack-jawed and speechless - which, as it turned out, was just long enough for the Princess of Darkness to reverse, downshift into low-buggy-gear and ride back to the gates of hell with my pudding.

"Haaaaaaaaay," I wailed, in my deepest southern drawl. "That's my pudding!"

"Oh, yeah?" She shot back. "Well, cry me a river why don't cha!"

And just like that. She was gone. I resisted the urge to chase after her and call her names, like, Ozzy Osborne's evil twin or Alice Cooper's red-headed step-child. Instead, I just stood there, watching her, feeling smugly satisfied and sanctimonious. She still didn't have that custard.

When she rounded the corner, I turned back to my buggy, plucking another box of vanilla pudding from the shelf and pushed off down the aisle. Any notions I had previously entertained about a Zen, or a Chi or a Feng-Shui, had quickly dissipated in the aftermath of the experience. Which, can only be described as a modern day Apocalypse.

No, I had not sailed the river Thames in search of ivory, deep into the belly of Africa; nor had I penetrated the war ravaged jungles of Vietnam. My story was much more innocent and innocuous. With visions of a Zen, or a Chi or a Feng Shui, I had simply entered Kroger, on aisle 4A, in search of jell-o sugar-free vanilla pudding. But, instead, I too had looked into the Heart of Darkness.

Oh, the horror. Oh, the horror.

Learn more about this author, Magnolia Miller.
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