Never mix Costco Sushi and free eggnog.

All I needed was a pack of CDs.

The sweet fragrance of old lady sweat and the silvery shine of shearing scissors overcame my senses and I floated - as if out of my body - above the piles of sweaters, over the unopened boxes of Sarah Palin books, around the cell phone kiosk, until at long last... I had settled in comfortably next to a grinning, blue-haired grandma.

She handed me a paper cup with a piece of sausage the length and width of a quarter in it.

- Gulp -

Ah, it had been awhile, but I was home. Home... or so I had thought.

On to table two - some sort of sandwich wrap with a dab of Ranch dressing on it. Bad move. Real bad. I can't imagine dog feces tasting much worse. (Not the big dog kind, but the little, rat dog kind)

I had to get that gosh awful taste out of my mouth... and FAST!

Table 3: Small block of cheese. Perfect. But now I am thirsty.

Ah, I see the drinks, way across the way. There are only 6 tables between me and the sodas.

Table 4: A slice of apple with something slimy on it; I am going to refer to it as "cheese". Gulp.

Next.

Table 5: Now this is where it gets a little sticky. Bad sushi. Costco sushi. Really bad Costco sushi. Need... something... fast.

Table 6: Eggnog. It's something to drink. It will have to do.

Oh no, even worse. Eggnog and bad sushi. Rotten. Life lesson: never mix eggnog with bad Costco sushi.

Only four more tables to the soda!

Table 7: Quiche. I know my the lining of my stomach has been burnt to a crisp and my mouth tastes like I made out with a dog that had just eaten eggnog and sushi, but who am I to pass up a good quiche?

This quiche would have killed to be considered "good".

Three more tables and this will all be behind me.

Table 8: Some sort of whole grain cracker with a nice little swab of spinach dip.

I have no idea why I ate that.

Death. Take me. If this is the way I was meant to go, so be it.

The last two tables were a blur. My head was spinning, my bowels on fire, my loins pinched by an enormous clenched fist like Sylvester Stalone's in the 1987 classic arm wrestling movie "Over The Top". I don't remember much at tables 9 & 10, just the beating of my own heart and a kindhearted elderly woman with a hairy chin and a hairnet leaning over me and asking if I was feeling alright.

I think one of these tables may have been a frozen pizza. It's nice they are handing it out, given that I have NEVER had a frozen pizza before.

At long last, table 11. The soda gleaming and glistening like the sweat on a Biggest Loser contestant's belly. I reached, hand trembling, drops of perspiration dripping off my forehead. Finally, the sweet relief of bubbly nectar rinsing my bowels of the poisonous rotten toxins.

What is this? What IS this stuff? Some sort of all natural diet fruit drink?!

Cathi had to strap me to the bottom of the shopping cart (on top of the toilet paper) and load my quivering body into the back of the van. I am just now recovering.

All I needed was a pack of CD's.