Bagged by the Groceries! by Fannie Tucker

 

Welcome to Literary Criticism 34, the lower division course where if you can analyze it, you can probably fuck it.

WHY is nobody talking about the social commentary in BAGGED BY THE GROCERIES? It literally opens with a privileged woman named Ashley (Karen's slightly up-market cousin) refusing to give groceries to a homeless woman on the grounds that she could easily get food stamps (no, seriously), and then getting fucked by the same (literal) fruits-- and vegetables!-- of the capitalist system that has screwed this woman. It is sexual karma in an erotic short.

Usually, the women in these books are as two-dimensional as paper dolls, but Fannie Tucker actually gave Ashley a personality. She's a woman who shops at the Piggly Wiggly, who gets turned on by shooting a firearm and feels a blend of white guilt and white fear about living in her gentrified neighborhood. She's dreamed about being a housewife all her life and is quick to tell you how many poor families her taxes pay for annually (several), but will also add that she isn't so out of touch that she doesn't know what street music is.

Even more weirdly, the groceries in this book are apparently the living embodiment of A(zaka), a loa (Haitian god, basically) of agriculture. Because naturally the homeless lady knows voodoo and naturally the homeless lady feels that some cucumber dick is a fitting fate for some privileged twat ramming her in the Piggly Wiggly (had to look that up, we don't have them here-- seems like it's basically a Southern Trader Joe's). Ironically, getting rammed in the Piggly Wiggly is exactly what happens to the heroine in this book.

So I know what you're asking. Is Zaka HAWT? Well...

Between those whole-grain thighs hung a long, thick cucumber and a pair of smooth, ripe nectarines (37%).

Licking his lettuce lips with a tongue that might have been a thick slice of the ham she picked up from the deli earlier, Zaka bored into her with his black eyes (46%).

Her fingers traced the bag of flower [sic] as she reached around back, sliding down to feel the pebbled texture of two cantaloupes that formed his tight, hard buttocks. She pulled him forward, deeper still, until the bulge of his plums pressed against her crotch (55%),

No? Not unless you've gone to a Golden Corral salad bar and thought to yourself, I wanna fuck that hot, throbbing salad bar. And then-- maybe. 

I AM VERY UPSET ABOUT THE INCONSISTENCY, THOUGH! First the author said that he has nectarine testicles, but then she changes her mind and calls them plums. Which are they, author? Golden nectarines or big purple plums? Also, the sack of flower [sic] that makes up his back-- earlier, you said his back was a loaf of bread. Did seeing her get him so hot that she-- ahem-- raised his dough? And if so, where did the yeast come from? Actually-- don't answer that. PLEASE.

Anyway, I'm sure we all know what's coming next.

Or, maybe I should say WHO'S coming.

"Come on, baby," she pleaded. "Gimme them groceries! Gimme them fucking groceries!" (60%)

But how does she know when he's finished? Well, remember that dripping yogurt carton in the beginning?

Now she knew where the yogurt had gone (61%).

That's right-- IT'S CHEKHOV'S YOGURT.

Anyway, being banged-- sorry, BAGGED-- by the Haitian grocery god and being seeded by his fertile love yogurt is apparently an irresistible aphrodisiac, because her lawyer husband comes home and seeing her lying in a bed filled with spilled flour (sorry, flower) and dripping, soured yogurt like a sundry seductress and can't resist. He bangs her, and BOOM. She's pregnant now. The baby is a probiotic smoothie. (Not really, but also-- MAYBE.)

After reading M.J. Edwards's erotica, I feel like nothing can shock me anymore. I mean, I've read dinorotica, COVIDrotica, and even poop man erotica (very disappointing), so groceries don't really feel THAT shocking. People play dirty with food all the time. Every ER tech I've befriended had at least one story about someone who got too creative with a cucumber. This just feels like the next level. I will say that Tucker's book at least reads like she put some thought into it. There are some metatextual levels to this and there's even some wry, tongue-in-cheek humor (oh where has the yogurt gone WINK).

I guess the moral of the story is, never insult a voodoo homeless lady unless you wanna get lucky.

1 out of 5 stars