Lukasz Obrzut--"Grocery Monster"

Last night, Friends of a Feather, two comrades of Awesome USA! and lovers of all things Cincinnati, ran into everyone’s favorite former Wildcat—Lukasz Obrzut—at Kroger. This is their story.

Before we get to Obrzut, we need to introduce you to another character in this story. As we walked into the store we were stopped in the cart area by a Hispanic-looking man, who didn’t seem to know where he was. He wanted one of us to get on the phone with his girlfriend to give her directions to where he was so she could pick him up (more on this later). After that exchange, we proceeded into the store. While sitting at the deli, we noticed a large shadow fall over us. Upon turning around, we realized that Lukasz Obrzut had made his way into the deli section of the grocery and was now towering over us. Wu was with a woman who appeared to be his mother, although she only stood about 5-feet tall. Apparently, Wu’s mom is a ballet dance instructor because she was wearing tights and dance shoes. Anyway, without trying, we repeatedly found ourselves in the same aisle as the Obrzuts. While we couldn’t understand what they were saying (Polish is not our strong suit), we were able to make some observations.

1.The Obrzuts really like Capri Sun.

2.The Obrzuts enjoy a variety of milks. In fact, they had 3 different containers of 2% milk, all different sizes and brands (one Kroger half gallon, one Dean’s gallon, and also a paper carton half gallon).

3.The Obrzuts will not tolerate incompetence. They seemed to be upset at the deli manager’s response that the butcher was closed and they would not be able to obtain any more meat (Polish sausage I’m guessing).

4.The Obrzuts do not adhere to conventional grocery-shopping techniques. They had a large flower taking up a lot of room in one of their two carts. Their solution to this lack of space was to place their groceries on the bottom rung of the cart (fruit and cartons of milk), which is usually reserved for drinks and laundry soap. Also on this bottom rung, they had one mango and two different containers of strawberries, some in a bag and some in a plastic crate.

5.The Obrzuts will not be hurried during check-out. It takes a while to check out when you are operating on the patented 2-cart Obrzut system, but they put this time to use. First Mrs. Wu left and came back with three more boxes of Capri Sun. This brings their total to approximately 20 boxes of Capri Sun—not bags, boxes. Then, when they were almost finished checking out, Momma Wu sent Wu to get a single item, but he came back with his hands full. We’re talking three rolls of paper towels, a package of toilet paper, some paper plates, and a 50 pack of plastic cups. Once back he made sure to remove his U.S. army lanyard from his neck and have them swipe his Kroger card which turned out to be a good move because they saved over $35. We’re not sure what their total was, but $35 in Kroger savings, wow.

6.We’re not sure what type of party they were planning to throw – we just wish we were invited.

We walked into the parking lot to load our groceries as Wu was finishing loading his into a large F150. As we were leaving, the same Hispanic gentleman from earlier showed up at the window from nowhere with a Corona in his hand. Unexpectedly, he shoved a brown paper bag through our window and said “many thanks.” As we pulled away, we looked to see what he had given us. The Hispanic gentleman had rewarded us with the remaining 3 Coronas from his sixer. He had apparently spent his time well while waiting for his ride.