A Caution

If you are having Big Feelings, you may not want to stop at WinCo late at night for groceries.

Because if you do, you may see four Russian brothers, approximate ages nine through sixteen, jubilantly racing through the store in pairs, doing their family’s grocery shopping.

You may see a tired-looking woman in glasses with shoulder-length hair and male-pattern baldness so severe that you’d think she was wearing a shower cap.

Or you may see a woman ahead of you in line, digging through her purse for change while she holds two dollar bills in her hand. She is shaking her head while the cashier counts out how many packets of Kool-Aid Blast she can buy for that. The woman’s three children wait patiently, the teenage boy bouncing his baby sister in his arms. Her elderly mother stares stoically into space.

And then you may see the scruffy man in line in front of you point to the other half of the woman’s groceries, the half that has been left on the conveyor belt because she’s run out of money.

“I’ll get the rest of it. I’ll pay for it.” And his wife doesn’t bat an eyelash, and they don’t appear to judge as the cashier rings up the giant jar of kosher dill pickles, the chips, the cans of Chef Boyardee ravioli. Fifty dollars’ worth of junky food.

You may see all these things, late at night at WinCo, and your Big Feelings might turn into even Bigger Feelings.