Fiddy Wouldn’t Front
Joelle said around mid-afternoon on June 22, 2007
I’ve not been feeling well lately. Nothing catastrophic, just a bit of a summer bug, I think. So, I dragged my sorry self out to the grocery store. I figured it would do me some good to get out in the fresh air and off the couch, plus, I really needed some diet 7-up and saltine crackers.
I’m standing in the last aisle of the store (seriously, why do they put the soda and the crackers way at the end by the tampons and dog food?), deciding between fat-free and regular multi-grain saltines for a good couple minutes and noticed a woman out of the corner of my eye, perusing the soda. To paint a picture for you, she was a heavyset black woman, wearing skin-tight orange stretch pants, a poncho, a knit beanie, flip flops and sunglasses. She had her own unique style I guess. She reminded me a lot of Big Shirl from What’s Happening only with Paris Hilton-style paparazzi glasses — for all that press we get in the snack aisle. Anyway, she turns to me out of nowhere and exclaims, “Giiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrl! Why they trippin’ like dat?”
Startled, I looked around and smiled at her in that, “I’m not entirely sure what you’re on about and I am friendly, but please do not encroach on my personal space” sort of way. She started going off on this rant about how soda costs nothing to make and how could those “soda folks be all frontin’ like dat!”? I was polite and laughed where appropriate. I was cordial while she went on about how she got the “2 litter” apple green tea for only “fiddy cent” at the dollar store and “these co-prit mothafuckas are robbin’ us! Just robbin’ and frontin’!”
Apparently, the “frontin’” didn’t sit too well with my new friend because she started shuffling all the 2 “litters” all over the shelf, putting things back in different places, determined to undermine the “soda-frontin’ mofos”, as she put it. After a few seconds of this, I wished her a good day and tried to scoot before she roped me into some crazy Thelma & Louise crime rampage that might leave me flashing a Coca-Cola truck driver or taking the store manager hostage over an overpriced bottle of Yoo-Hoo. I’m not going off a cliff for Big Shirl.
As I finally turned the corner, she was moving on to the other end of the aisle and she stopped and called out, “You know, you cool, sugar. Wanna help me mess up some of that toilet paper?”
Tempting… but no, thank you.
Moxie Design Studios™
Are you sure it wasn’t Eddie Murphy going Borat style as Norbit in “Norbit II: Electric Boogaloo”?
I don’t suppose discussing with her the capitalist philosophy of “the buyer actually determines the price” would have yielded any more positive results, huh?
from West Palm Beach, FL • Cocktail: Champagne Bellini
Where does one BUY orange stretch pants I wonder?
from Maryland
What does “frontin” even mean, anyway? Could I get some English in the House?
from Chicago
DAMN! She found out my secret to getting Big Business to lower their prices-mess up the product displays. She’s still thinking small though. She has to move up to the liquor and meat departments.
from san diego • Cocktail: margarita
what i love most is the sunglasses. come on, it’s all about glamour at the grocery in san diego!
from Virginia
LOL. Of course I shouldn’t laugh...that sounds like what goes on frequently around my neck of the woods. :-\
from San Diego, CA • Cocktail: slightly dirty Grey Goose martini
@daniel: this was at the Alberton’s on Washington, if that tells you anything.
@Cindy: please. LAUGH!
it’s good for the soul and trust me… it was funny. lol
@Gretchen: I am not completely sure. I think it falls under the same heading as “misrepresentin’”.
from Cleveland, OH
My problem would have been that I would have probably replied in the same ghetto-speak fashion as she was speaking, and I clearly am not a girl from the ghetto, as best as I might occasionally try. That probably would have gotten me in some hot watah!
from Houston • Cocktail: Mango Mojito
Did her breff smell like goat meat?!
Great. I get to be “that guy.”
Fronting means “putting on a false front so you seem different than you really are.”
By the way… is Yoo-Hoo still around? Damn, that stuff was solid.
I thought I was the only one that encountered weirdos when I went out! At least I only run into them at restaurants and not at the grocery store. Did you go back to see if she messed up the TP? I would have
from San Diego, CA • Cocktail: slightly dirty Grey Goose martini
@Maine: “that guy” haha! aw, but you’re so good at it.
@geeky: I run into weirdos ALL the time. It’s like a thing with me. People think I make this stuff up, but anyone who has spent time with me can tell you — it just happens. I guess I give off some vibe like “Hey weirdo! come talk to me!”
@Ms Pants: thankfully, I wasn’t that close.
That is hilarious. But you should have given into temptation and gone after the TP. You know you wanted to!!!
from San Diego, CA • Cocktail: slightly dirty Grey Goose martini
@joz: hahaha! perhaps I should have…
Maybe next time.
from Oc-South
As someone who worked retail- specifically grocery stores at one point- ‘fronting’ means (in that spectrum) facing all the labels forward as well as moving all the stuff up front to the edge to make it look full and nice so you don’t mind spending the money.
But that doesn’t explain why she was dressed as she was complaining as she was when she clearly knew where to go get the better price.
My girls and I would have done the wide-eyed-did-you-just-see-what-I-saw look at each other and run the other way.
from Santa Barbara, CA
Wow, you get all the cool encounters! I think I recall you (and perhaps Mikey?) having other amusing run-ins. It almost makes me wish you stuck around to see what other havoc she could cause! But I suppose you’re right--not worthy of going off that cliff for....at least not until you see Brad Pitt shirtless first!