Fashion Forward: Jurassic Park and Film Noir Booze

So I was buying groceries this weekend and there was a guy in the checkout line in front of me who absolutely captivated my attention to the point that I couldn’t leave the store without taking notes. First off, he was buying Glenlivet scotch, which you don’t see being purchased at the grocery store every day. I didn't know you could even buy fancy booze like that at the grocery store. The reason I even know about Glenlivet is because of the movie Bound. Part of the plot of Bound revolves around Jennifer Tilly’s character leaving the apartment to go buy Glenlivet scotch for some mob bosses while her girlfriend, Gina Gershon, steals their money. If you enjoy film noir and have not seen Bound, I don’t know what you’ve been doing with your life. There’s no good excuse for your not having seen this Wachowski Siblings early film effort. It’s on the list of my top five favorite films transgender people have made. Also, my top five favorite films ever. Spoiler alert: Joe Pantoliano says the F word a lot.

So anyway, this dude is in the checkout line in front of me buying this super-fancy, expensive single-malt scotch—like the kind from Scotland, which I already mentioned, is by itself kind of notable. But he was also purchasing…wait for it…grocery store sushi. Dude. I mean, he’s shelling out the cash for what is one of the best boozes in the entire world, but he’s cheaping out on sushi made by the freaking grocery store. What? Admittedly, I’m no expert on fish, rice, and seaweed rolls (or whatever the heck is in those things,) but I am reasonably certain that the good ones do not come from the deli counter at Hy-Vee.

As I watched the checker scanning the items through the register, which took some time since the scotch was inside of a fancy box (!!) and affixed with an anti-theft security cap that the checker had to disassemble to remove, I became quite interested in who was involved in these two very bizarre purchases. I was not disappointed. The scotch and sushi patron looked exactly like Sam Neill’s character in Jurassic Park. I am not even kidding. He was wearing a plaid flannel shirt, khaki cargo pants, and really muddy hiking boots. Also, he had on a wide-brimmed fedora. This guy had just returned from an expedition unearthing dinosaur bones in the wilderness apparently. The dude was at Hy-Vee buying expensive booze and cheap fish while wearing a distressed cotton fedora and tracking fresh mud. I assume he had left his leather shoulder satchel in the Land Rover with his pickaxe.

I wondered what this guy’s evening was going to look like. Was there a lover in the picture? I secretly hoped he was heading to a dinner party with Jeff Goldblum and Werner Herzog where a discussion about the intricacies of filming a docudrama on wild bears while not being picketed by PETA or eaten by the grizzlies would take place. That’s actually probably a thing that may have happened because Jeff Goldblum and Werner Herzog are battsh!t crazy and have dinner parties together. Also, Werner Herzog made a documentary about bears eating people, presumably while drinking a lot of really expensive whisky.

In summation, The Matrix was made by a transgender person, I admit to having seen multiple Werner Herzog documentaries, and never have I ever wanted to follow someone home from the grocery store to see how their evening shaped up more than I did this weekend.