so i had a slightly interesting situation at the grocery store the other day.....

since i have a very odd and deliberate fixation with running boring or otherwise dull errands, it is of no surprise that i signed myself up for purchasing the necessary ingredients to make a tortilla soup for my mom. very interesting right? sure, such a chore may appear to be in its very nature innocent, but  in reality is a strong and trioecious enemy. i am, of course,  referring to the infamous.....green chili.

i had never purchased a green chili before, but assumed, like any other good natured buyer, that such a purchase could not prove to be so difficult as all i needed to do was locate the appropriate section of the produce aisle, find the green chilies, put them in a bag, and leave. after all, i do cook and would surely be able to locate my chili like all the great cooks on food network. as i meandered over the produce section, i finally stumbled across a solitary bar from whence it was possible to discover that perhaps no seasoned cook had ever set eyes.  As i carefully poured over the endless containers of small, large, medium, and dried chilies, i began to have severe misgivings of ever having undertaken this task, for not only was there a tremendous cornucopia of the spicy delicacies, there also existed quite a variety of green colered ones. It seems so easy when paula deane and rachel ray show up to the local market, give a scoop as to why this chili is the best and go home to cook it! how was i to know which one was a normal cooking chili??? unable to bear the pressure of appearing as a ignorant cook, i quickly snatched the nearest green chili and sniffed it, as if by some miracle i could somehow distinguish between the myriads by means of olfactory differentiation.  seeing as this provided  little  assistance to my quest, i then attempted to look professional by my apparent inspection of the little vegetable and proceeded to thoroughly address said chili. nervously, i averted my "inisghtful" interrogation to take in the local buyers, noticed no one was noticing anything amiss, so i put the chile down, again staring blankly at this wretched shelf of vegetables and fervently praying to leave. i tried various other "methods" of somehow procuring the right chili and even considered buying the entire stock for convenience's sake, when, unbeknownst to me, a little sales clerk approached stating that he noticed i was having some 'difficulties with the chilies'. my embarrassed look of horror didn't seem to faze the man as i choked out, "uh....hi...um i've never bought chilies...um before.....uh....where are the normal green ones?" he casually pointed to these tiny little chilies on the middle of some dried jalepenos and assured me that these were the ones i was looking for. in stupefied chagrin, i thrust three enormous handfuls into the plastic bag as the man looked on, amused that his entire stock of normal green chilies was just purchased by an apparent imbecile. ahh...the joys of chili shopping.....

i think i shall leave to other unfortunate souls......hehe