The Day We Terrorized the Grocery Store (With Laughter)

My brother and I are not allowed to go to the grocery store together unsupervised. I’m convinced of this. There should be a sign at the entrance that says: “Warning: If These Two Enter Together, Productivity Will Drop and Laughter Will Increase.”

Today proved it.

I needed to go to the grocery store — Price Chopper — and not for snacks, not for nonsense, not for “ooh that looks good.” I needed real groceries. Actual food. Ingredients. Responsible adult decisions. The kind of groceries that say, Yes, I have my life together, even if that is a bold-faced lie.

Now normally, I go by myself and move with purpose. But today my brother was with me, and when me and my brother get together, purpose leaves the building and foolishness clocks in for a full shift with overtime.

Our personalities are way too similar. We are what I call “friendly instigators.” We talk to random people, but it’s not mean — it’s conversational nonsense, observational comedy, aisle-by-aisle commentary. We don’t start trouble — trouble just pulls up a chair and joins us.

From the moment we walked in, it was already over.

We weren’t even ten steps inside the store before we started narrating our own shopping trip like a documentary.

“Here we observe the rare Grocery Store Sibling Duo,” my brother says quietly, like a wildlife narrator. “Notice how they pretend they know exactly what they came for.”

I said, “Sir, please don’t spook them. They’re easily distracted and will buy cookies instead of vegetables.”

A lady walking past us snorted laughing and said, “Too late for that.”

See? We hadn’t even picked up a basket yet.

We get to the popcorn aisle because I’m trying to decide what kind of popcorn I want. Not need. Want. This is an emotional decision, not a nutritional one. My brother is standing there reading labels like he’s studying for a final exam he never signed up for.

Then he says, dead serious:
“Girl, they got popcorn with chocolate drizzled all over it. It’s good.”

Now let me explain something. My brother does not really mess with sweets like that. So when he recommends a sweet item, I take it under advisement — but with suspicion.

I looked at him and said, “Chocolate… on popcorn? I don’t know. I can eat popcorn that tastes like chocolate, but chocolate actually on popcorn feels like a trust issue.”

He says, “You scared of flavor.”

I said, “No, I’m cautious of betrayal.”

The woman stocking popcorn behind us started laughing so hard she had to lean on the shelf. That turned into a five-minute debate about snack boundaries, popcorn integrity, and whether drizzle counts as a topping or a crime.

We hadn’t put a single thing in the cart yet.

Next stop: the meat counter.

We’re ordering hamburger meat and catfish nuggets, and somehow we turned that into a full stand-up routine with the butcher. Not on purpose — it just happens. My brother asked questions like he was interviewing the meat personally.

“Which one of these got the best personality?” he asked.

The butcher blinked. “Sir… it’s ground beef.”

“Yeah but which one woke up motivated this morning?”

By the time we finished, that man told us — and I quote — that he deals with a lot of people every day, but we were his favorite customers in a long time. That right there made my whole day. Because making people laugh when they’re just trying to survive a shift? That’s top-tier community service.

As we kept moving through the store, it turned into a rolling conversation cloud. Me and my brother weren’t exactly starting conversations with people — we were talking to each other — but people kept joining in like audience participation was mandatory.

Comment here. Joke there. One-liners flying. Reactions everywhere.

Then we get to checkout.

This little older lady opens up her lane and calls me over. I ask, “You ready for me?” She says yes — confidently — then sees my brother coming around the corner with the cart and screams, “AHH!” — but in the funniest, most playful way possible. Not fear — just dramatic shock.

We had her laughing, the bagger laughing, the next customer laughing — it turned into Checkout Comedy Hour.

We finally load everything into the car, and I’m thinking we’re done.

We are not done.

My brother says, “I want some deli meat.”

I just stared at him.

“We have been in this store for an hour and a half,” I said. “You are just now discovering the concept of deli meat?”

He goes inside, gets it, comes back out, and tells me there was a sign: buy one pound of meat, get one pound of cheese free — but nobody offered him the cheese.

Now listen. My brother is focused. When he sees a posted deal, that deal is now law.

The moment he told me that, something in my spirit said, Well now I want deli meat too.

So back in the store we go.

As we walk past customer service, the manager sees us and says, “Not you two back in my store again!”

Everybody around started laughing — cashiers, security, customers — like we were recurring characters in a sitcom called As The Grocery Cart Turns.

At the deli counter, it’s the same man who helped my brother. He recognizes us instantly.

“Oh — you’re with him,” he says to me.

“Yes,” I said. “We’re a package deal. No returns.”

He had that look like he expected attitude. Instead he got sarcasm and jokes. We went back and forth like we were in a comedy sketch about lunch meat negotiations.

All I wanted was my deli meat and my pepper jack cheese so I could go home — but apparently the universe wanted character development first.

We finally leave — again — and on the way out I see the manager and point at her and say, “I promise you we are not coming back again today. We will see y’all next month.”

She laughed so hard she had to grab the counter.

And that’s when it hit me.

Some people go to the grocery store to shop.
Me and my brother go to the grocery store to accidentally host a live comedy tour with produce.

We didn’t plan it. We didn’t rehearse it. That’s just how we are together — chaos, humor, commentary, and community — aisle by aisle.

I swear we could turn a trip for bread into a three-act play.

And honestly?

Best grocery trip I’ve had in a long time.