I'd like the racism hoagie please. Sure, let's do the twelve inch.

Snap back to reality.

I've always liked Safeway—the checkers are nice—some are funny, others almost jog to show you were the pickled pigs' feet stand(?). And since I've been doing the weekly shopping at the same store for two years now, I have become The Snakeman of Safeway.

Backtracking is for losers. If you realize you forgot organic free range low sodium turkey bacon, but not until you're cruising the canned, fat-free whipped creamish aisle, you in fact are a moob.

And no one likes moobs. You know what though? There's got to be some type of male boob website out there for the enthusiasts, somewhere out there in the peripheral prairies of pervdom.

Anyway, I'm avoiding the issue, because it's not funny and it flared up twice yesterday.

My wife and daughter stood at the Safeway deli counter, waiting to order a sandwich. They were second in line to a young African American guy, who was also waiting for a sandwich order.

"Oh, I'll be right back," he said, returning shortly with a shopping basket.

The woman in a hair net and black apron held his sandwiches. "You need to pay for these before you go shopping."

What? Those of you who know my wife can probably guess how she reacted to this racist assholery by the Safeway lady. That little, bushy-eyebrowed woman has handed us more unpaid-for stuff than Ike, the friendly grocer from Walton's Mountain.

While the guy purchased his sandwiches my wife approached him. "I'm really sorry that she is making you pay for those here. That is completely wrong."

"Yeah," he said. "It is completely wrong."

The deli woman, still only a couple of feet from the conversation, handed my wife her sandwich, turned and walked away. No payment necessary, apparently.

Pissed off as only a woman of Tuscan blood can be, my bride fought back her desire to rake the deli lady's head to and fro across the meat slicer—and slowly, silently burned.

She came home and told me about it. She regretted not having said something to the offensive employee.

"Why don't you just write to the management and tell them what happened?" I asked.

"It's just so much stronger to handle things face-to-face," she said. "But it's too late now, so emailing the store manager is better than nothing."

"Pshaw," I didn't say. "Why deal with things directly when you can comfortably blog about them?"

We have different styles.

Then, last night, a verdict was reached in the murder trial of Michael Dunn, a Florida man convicted of three counts of attempted second degree murder. The jury was deadlocked on the more serious charge of first degree murder.

Here's an excerpt from cnn.com of what allegedly happened:

It was November 23, 2012, when Michael Dunn pulled into a gas station in Jacksonville, parking next to a red Dodge Durango full of teenagers. The teens had pulled in for gum and cigarettes; Dunn, meanwhile, had just left his son's wedding with his fiancee, who'd gone inside the convenience store for wine and chips. 

Dunn didn't like the loud music—"rap crap," as he called it—coming from the teens' SUV. So he asked them to turn it down. 

What followed next depends on whom you believe. Dunn claimed Davis threatened him, and he decided to take matter into his own hands upon seeing what he thought was the barrel of a gun sticking out of the Durango. 

But prosecutors asserted that it was Dunn who lost control, firing three volleys of shots—10 bullets total—at the SUV over music he didn't like, one of which killed 17-year-old Jordan Davis.

Prosecutors challenged what he did next: He left the gas station and drove 40 miles away to a bed and breakfast in St. Augustine. There, Dunn walked his dog, ordered a pizza, then drank rum and cola—"stunned and horrified, (shocked how) things escalated the way they did over a common courtesy."

This guy will probably spend the rest of his life in prison because of a few pre-conceived notions and theclose proximity of a firearm. I'm not saying the guy should be denied the right to protect himself, but why not just go in, get your girlfriend out of the store, and leave?

So yeah, yesterday was one of those days—a few household chores, some Winter Olympics—and a big ugly slice of bigotry on sale at Safeway.