HEB on Christmas Eve

I've always wondered what hell would look like - often imagined it like Dante did with several levels and environments getting worse and worse as you get deeper and your sins larger. I think I found an example of it this morning, maybe not quite a level of hell - maybe just a limbo of sorts - but whatever it was, I was trapped in it this morning with all sorts of lost souls. That's the only way to explain HEB this morning... I wasn't in a grocery store - I somehow stepped through a portal into an alternate dimension... a twilight zone of free sample girls and cranky stock boys -- end caps of mushroom soups, cranberry sauces, and Velveeta -- and the weirdest combination of customers ever put together. Plenty of us looked like me and who I am sure got up, brushed teeth and hair, and went straight to the store - stopping on the way for the necessary caffeine kick to keep us going. I saw plenty of people with bed head hair wandering the aisles in flip flops & pajamas (myself included). There were the creepy people who were already dressed for Christmas, glowing with holiday cheer and disgustingly bright & cheery. And then there were the unexplainable - the goth guy in full goth get up head to toe black leather with piercings & chains all over - and the guy in motorcycle gear, including a full face helmet, pushing a basket of groceries. Now that one I wouldn't have believed myself if I hadn't seen him first hand. For two hours I was trapped in Holiday Hell with these people, fighting for the last pecan pie & jug of egg nog, listening to Clay Aiken Christmas carols, praying to get out alive...