Produce-geists

So I had a rather unnerving experience in the produce section of our local Walmart yesterday. I'm sure everyone who has spent anytime shopping at a grocery store has seen something fall off the shelving all by itself at some point or another. You're pushing your cart (or your buggy, depending on how far south you live) around the corner and suddenly an apple spontaneously falls off the apple pile and hits the floor. Or an elaborately stacked display of citrus will seemingly eject two oranges, which leads to an avalanche of citrus cascading everywhere. Usually this happens with roundish fruits and vegetables that roll easily. Flattish foods, like collard greens or bags of baby carrots, rarely misbehave this way.

I was looking at some tomatoes yesterday when I head something fall from the display behind me. There was a bag of radishes on the floor. I thought it was odd that a flat bag had slid off the shelf like that but I picked it up and put it back. A second later I was surprised to see a plastic box of miniature bell peppers two feet down from the radishes fall off the shelf and break open. Red and orange peppers bounced around on the floor. Dutifully I picked them up and put them back on the shelf. A man and his wife walking past laughed gently and told me that they had dropped a whole box of doughnuts on the floor just last week, Doncha you hate it when that happens? I stammered that I hadn't even touched the radishes or the peppers when they fell. That's when two heads of lettuce bounced off the stand behind us. Mr. Husband looked at the errant produce with big eyes and I decided it was time to go.

I told my husband about the eerie happenings in the produce department when I got home. Steve pointed out that the freezer section is immediately behind that wall of produce and someone was probably slamming the freezer doors a little too hard, making the vegetables fall off the stands that way. That's a logical explanation, but part of me likes the idea of a produce-geist throwing a hissy fit every so often at the local Walmart. However, I'm shopping someplace else if I ever see something similar over in the meat department.