Supermarket Akira The Don (Ft. David Foster Wallace)

There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches
One such part involves boredom
Routine
And petty frustration
The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I’m talking about

By way of example
Let’s say it’s an average adult day
And you get up in the morning
Go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job
And you work hard for eight or ten hours
And at the end of the day you’re tired
And somewhat stressed
And all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack early
Because, of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again
But then you remember there’s no food at home

You haven’t had time to shop this week
Because of your challenging job
And so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket
It’s the end of the workday
And the traffic is apt to be
Very bad
So getting to the store takes way longer than it should
And when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded
Because of course, it’s the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping
And the store is hideously fluorescently lit
And infused with soul-killing muzak or corporate pop
And it’s pretty much the last place you want to be
But you can’t just get in and quickly out
You have to wander all over the huge, over-lit store’s confusing aisles to find the stuff you want
And you have to maneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts