Before work today I decided to stop by my local supermarket to purchase some tasty beverages and snacks. I entered the supermarket and walked down aisle 5 to choose a bottle a soft drink. I am a big fan of Pepsi max, so there wasn’t really much of a choice to be made other than between the 1.25L bottle and the 2L bottle. As the 1.25L bottle was on special I took one from the shelf before realising that the 2L bottle had a $250,000 promotion going on. While I stood there contemplating my chances of the winning $250K (which would have been a good 15 seconds as I had begun deciding what to spend it on) I noticed a 1.25 L bottle begin to topple from the edge of the shelf. Now at this stage I have to stress that it was at least 15 seconds after I removed a bottle AND it was not the bottle next to the one I took.

I must also point out that the bottle fell from the second lowest shelf which is less than a metre off the ground. The bottle rotated as it fell so that the lid was pointing towards the shelf it had fallen from. Upon reaching the ground the cap shot off like a rat down a drain pipe heading off in the direction of aisle 4 and the bottle torpedoed along the ground in the direction of aisle 6 leaving a trail on Pepsi max behind it.

So there I am standing in the middle of aisle 5 about a metre away from a river of pepsi max dividing the aisle with no bottle or lid in sight wondering how this happened to me. I can only assume the bottle decided to commit suicide, or a mini earthquake must have occurred or someone bumped the shelf from the other side as the bottle fell so long after I had taken my bottle. Whatever happened lets just agree it wasn’t my fault.

I looked down the aisle towards the registers to see a middle aged women with a mullet rolling her eyes at me with a look that said “You %$#@&*”. I contemplated telling her the bottle clearly jumped but decided against it, besides she was serving other people and they hadn’t noticed and I wasn’t about to draw it to their attention. She continued to glance at me like I’m an idiot. I was about to inform her that at least I’m not a middle aged, mullet headed, check-out chick, when I remembered that middle aged, mullet headed women usually have middle aged, mullet wearing, red neck boyfriends who own shotguns.

I walked around to aisle 6 to try and retrieve the bottle only to find that the river of pepsi max continued across that aisle as well. I walked across to aisle 7 and looked down it; the trail had stopped but still no sight of the bottle. Maybe the bottle had already emptied itself across aisle 6-7? Quite possible by the amount of pepsi max on the floor.
At this stage I decided that no happy ending was possible for anyone and informed one of the other staff that an accident had occurred. Our conversation went like this.

Me: Excuse me, there has been a bit of a spill in aisle 5
Her: Aisle 5, ok thanks.
Me: *nodding* Yes… well… and aisle 6
Her: Ok… aisle 6 as well (she is looking worried now)
Me: well it’s hard to tell, there could quite possibly be some spillage either side of that.
Her: (She’s just looking at me blankly now)
Me: Might be a good idea to check under the shelves as well.

I quickly went to a cash register (not the one with angry mullet lady) and paid for my things and left.