Catch-Up Slow-Down

Two women who haven’t seen each other in ages have crossed paths while shopping at a Dayton area grocery store and are completely blocking the aisle, say sources at the scene. Shoppers should expect congestion and delays moving into and through aisle 6 for the time being.

Two shoppers now identified as Miriam Pingress and Sara Marchand were traveling in opposite directions through aisle 6 (condiments, canned vegetables) at a local Kroger’s this afternoon.

“Oh my god,” said Pingress according to sources, “they’ll just let anybody in here these days!”

“They clearly hadn’t seen each other in a while,” says Kroger employee Rex Farraday. “It was all ‘oh my god, how are you?’ and ‘how’s George or whoever the crap’ and buh-buh buh-buh. I waited for a minute to get through but then I just doubled back the other way.”

The blockage that some witnesses referred to as “mildly inconvenient” or “selfish, like they’re the only people in this store who matter” caused traffic to back up on both ends of the aisle and into the main walkway as many customers found it difficult to navigate with their carts.

“It’s a good thing it happened in the condiment aisle,” says local dad and shopper Mark Carpenter, “because now they can…. Ketchup! Get it?” he asked, nudging his wife. “The KETCHUP aisle?!”

“Catch a pile?” remarked Carpenter’s wife Martha. “What are you even talking about? You gave your stupid quote, can we go now?”

Wow, okay….

Store management warns that the back-up may continue indefinitely and urges shoppers to utilize the detour now running through the pet food aisle. Some reports coming out of the area have said that the pair is sharing news about things that happened months or even years ago. Our best estimates at the moment are that these two haven’t seen each other in like for-ev-er.

“It’s probably going to be a while,” warns Manager Cate Stetko. “Best thing to do right now is to just plan an alternate route.”

Management’s advisory to avoid aisle 6 will remain in place until the scene is clear and they ask that if you specifically need something from that area that you utilize a carry basket or send in a small child as shopping carts will only exacerbate the blockage.

Update: We can now confirm that Miriam Pingress and Sara Marchand have agreed to “do lunch” at a later, unspecified date, kissed the air next to each other’s cheek and departed the store. Aisle 6 has now been cleared for all traffic types including shopping carts, strollers, dogs that technically shouldn’t be allowed in the store, and those wagons people sometimes drag their kids around in.