I’m normally a pretty mellow guy. I’ve never been in trouble with the law, and every time I found trouble in school, it was due to a mischievous friend or another external factor, and that’s the way I like it: I don’t mess with the rules, so I never have had to worry about them. Some would say that’s not very adventurous of me, but as this blog’s existence clearly shows, I’ve been able to find adventure in other ways. With this said, however, there was one time in high school where I broke from this squeaky clean track record and was less than politely asked to leave a Publix grocery store.

It was senior year. I was in AP Psychology, and surprisingly not hating every minute of it. I had a few friends in the class, and the teacher, Mr. Hoyle, was a cool dude with a big belly and a dry wit. Needless to say, he always kept things interesting. I remember that it was toward the end of the semester. We were wrapping up our final few sections and moving into AP test prep mode when as a last minute project, he assigned his infamous “Social norms” project.

This project was legendary among those who had completed AP Psych. The parameters were simple: Go out in public and break 3 social norms. Do not break the law, do not tell witnesses that it’s for a school project beforehand, film your 3 acts and the witness’ reactions. How hard could it be?

Turns out it’s more difficult than you might think. Most people are not afraid to call the cops on the drop of a hat. One girl pulled a stunt at a local burger king drive through, and accidentally backed up into the person behind her. There were a bunch of mishaps that led to the project being canceled in all subsequent courses, but the few that avoided police and bent fenders were actually fun to watch. One group of guys started playing board games in the middle of the mall. Another group walked through a drive through like they were sitting in an invisible car, and another still went through a drive through just to smear his ice cream order across his shirtless torso. My heart goes out to all the affected fast food employees. We certainly didn’t make their lives any easier.

Myself, I had no clue what I wanted to do. I wanted to avoid anything that might be considered illegal, and I wanted to affect as few people as possible. So with these parameters in mind, I set out one evening at about 8:00, armed with a camera, my buddy chan, and my best friend Aurora. We were ready to get some reactions.

Chan had the camera. He was a small, Asian dude, and kept an even lower profile than myself, so he was easy to hide in the aisles. Aurora, the most gregarious of the bunch, and I set out to corner some people and make them uncomfortable. It was easy enough at first. We flanked random customers at our local Kroger and sang songs from Frozen, talked in vivid detail about poop, and professed love here and there. We cornered one guy and began talking about bowel movements, at which point he jumped in and asked: “Was it a floater or a sinker?” His was the best reaction by far.

Finally, we had enough footage for my project. I went home to compile the footage, but I wasn’t satisfied with my results. Before I grew to be comfortable with making strangers uncomfortable, I failed to commit to a prank and crashed and burned a few times, so I decided I wanted to do one more. The event would go down the following night.

That night, Aurora and I were in a theater show, and as we stood greeting parents and patrons after our curtain call, we were discussing exactly what we should do for our other grand finale. It was during a lull in the conversation that the man who asked if it was a floater approached me and asked how my next movement went. When I finally recognized him, I felt the blood rush away from my face, and as Aurora turned around, I saw it rush from hers. Turns out the man was the father of one of our fellow cast members and had told his entire family of the strange goings-on at Kroger the night before. He grabbed the attention of his daughter (our fellow actor), and the following exchange ensued:

“Hey, sweetie! Remember the poop people?

“From last night?”

“Yeah! Here they are!”

Aurora and I stood there, sheepishly grinning and silently coming to terms with the new label of “The Poop People.” Luckily, he was a good sport about it, and we explained that it was for a class project.

We left the school very late, this exchange fresh in our minds. We decided that in order to avoid running into anyone else we knew, we would not go to a store that we usually patronized – So Publix it was.

We walked through the front door not really knowing what we were going to do. Aurora held the camera this time, and as we passed down the aisles, we discussed possible options. We soon came to the far end of the back meat aisle, and the aisle was clear. It was like a blank canvas beckoning me to work my masterpiece. I turned to Aurora and told her to roll the camera.

“What are you going to do?” she asked

“You see that aisle?” I asked. She nodded. “Well, I’m rolling out.”

Now I don’t remember how I avoided the 6 customers that peppered my path, but by some miracle, I did. I rolled out – Barrel rolled out. I flopped shoulder over shoulder down the entirety of the meat aisle yelling “Wheeeeeeee!” the entire way. Aurora sat at my start point, mouth agape, frantically shifting the camera from person to person and back to me. It was glorious.

I finished my roll, popped up, and ducked into a side aisle to regain my balance. I was quite dizzy, and as I stood with my hands on my knees I noticed a pair of brown loafers stop in front of me. I looked up. A short man with spikey hair and a green, “Publix” embroidered shirt stood in front of me with a stern scowl. Aurora was behind him, escorted by another employee. I glanced at his name tag. His name was Chris, and he was the manager.

“You need to go.” Four words I didn’t think I’d ever hear. I responded with a short “Yup!” and stumbled very quickly out of the store, Aurora giggling in tow.

I don’t think that the manager held a grudge about it. I’m not even sure that he would’ve recognized me the following day, much less now, nearly four years later. Nevertheless, I have successfully avoided that particular store since then. For about a year I avoided the chain entirely but broke that streak out of necessity once I got to college.

I received an A on the project. I’m not sure if the Publix stunt helped or hurt my grade, but I know I did get some excellent reactions. I’m glad I had the opportunity to complete the project, but I’m not sure that I’d do it again. I still have the footage, and upon close inspection, those leather loafers and pale green shirt are visible and moving swiftly towards me as the clip ends.

-Nickel