Madhouse on Aisle 12

Get a packet of chocolate chip cookies.

"Oil is partially hydrogenated," says cookies. "Palm oil, I mean. Hurry up if you just stab yourself in the heart. And, we're sitting here ... it should be eight months."

I toss the package into my cart and move on to the dairy, holding a gallon of two percent.

"Aren't you old enough for this?" asked milk. "You really don't have any more enzymes. And yet, you can see I'm in plastic. All those deadly PVCs get inside. Although ... maybe Bovine Growth Hormone will cancel them out."

I put the gall back and reached for a carton of soymilk chocolate.

"I'm not really milk," she whispered, sounding embarrassed. "I'm a juice. But who can drink chocolate juice? It sounds bad to me."

"Nice breasts," the chicken breasts leer, as I leaned over the meat case. At least I know they are new.

"How are you feeling?" asked the wings. "Do you have a cold or flu? Because I'm full of antibiotics. I'm ready to get sick."

As I walk down the turkey whisper a warning, "Beware of beef. It's crazy, altogether."

"We're not crazy!" The hamburgers screamed in unison. "Why, we're not even beef!"

"I am a giraffe," said the giraffe.

"I am the king of Sweden," said a pack of short ribs.

"We're a monkey!" shouting T-bone.

"Yes, yes, baboon!" all the steaks took a cry. "Hwawuwwwl!"

"I'm not crazy," said a pound of ground beef, sitting at a distance from another. "I am authoritative and not cruel. I come from a cow named Eloise, who roamed the sun-drenched fields and ate nothing but fresh clover and sweetgrass for the rest of her life. he was fired. It was all very fun, just like me. "

I'm getting closer.

"I could be yours for just twenty dollars a pound," he said.

I'm leaving.

"What are you doing?" said a bag of bacon. "Get away from me. I have too much sodium, and yet, nitrates give you cancer."

The cartwheel is moving, I run the other way down the hallway, the strange howls of hot dogs are sharp in my ears.

In the canned soup show comes a series of embarrassing raps. "Hello? Is anyone out there? What year? Hello?"

"No disaster!" said the spaghetti sauce. "Sono piano di sciroppo di mais."

"Amid the corn syrup in the sauce, and the sugar and flour that have been digested too much for me, a quick trip to Ville," the boxed rigatoni notes, not unkindly.

There is a political/socio-economic debate going on in the area of ​​coffee.

"Think of the staff!" shouts a decaf bag.

I do not delay, I go straight to produce.

I grabbed a bag of spinach. Quiet. It's too quiet. I took it and put it in my ear.

"Some ... sometimes?" whispers, "in the processing industry? They ... don't always wash their hands."

I replaced the spinach. Organic oranges all shine with contempt, until the pineapple spoils its flavor.

"They are not really living things," he said.

Angry protests fill the air. The small, covered with black markers, speaks for the group:

"We're not healthy! Look how ugly we look and how small we are!"

"How much did it cost to extract oil from here?" Asks the pineapple.

The oranges are silent.

"Yes," the pineapple admits, "because of the damage done by fruit companies historically to the third world, I too may become bloodthirsty."

I look at my cart. So far, just a cookie package. I put them back on the shelf.

They say: “Wise choices. "We've been here for twelve months. And you don't really want to see the store."

I put the cart back in its place and left the shop. In a small bodega on the corner, apple and pear barrels are wailing and moaning as I pass by.

My stomach churns. I still have a few ramen packs back in my house. They shout something just before they hit the boiling water, but at least not in Japanese.