My local grocery store is the Basket and like anyone in New England knows, the Basket is basically THE social hangout of the century. They open at 7am, close at 9pm and are packed to at least twice the fire code every hour in between. I dutifully leave my house at 8pm on the appointed grocery shopping night and make my grueling 2.5 minute drive to the store.
That's when the fun begins.
To park at the Basket, you must possess the skills of a Nascar driver. You need catlike reflexes, better than 20/20 vision and a keen sense of adventure. I skillfully maneuver my SUV into the parking spot, avoiding children, seagulls and shopping carts while carefully staying within the yellow lines. I avoid the pretentious Mercedes who's rear tire is over the line straying into my newly acquired space while wondering why a person who has enough money to drive a new Mercedes would shop at the Basket. Perhaps their grocery savings has paid for their luxury whip? Who knows.
Once out of my car, it's like a game of Frogger to get to the front door. 2 steps forward, 1 step back. Dash behind a car that's backing out to get a shopping cart. Leave the safety of the concrete cart return (apparently people like to hit those, so they needed something more durable than plastic or metal) and then make a mad dash to the front. There will surely be someone blocking the ramp to the sidewalk with a car while waiting for their better (and smarter) half to appear with food. I shoot them a dirty look and squeeze my cart past their car, not really avoiding touching it, but making a face as if I care. I wave as I approach the automatic doors.
The door opens, though somewhat reluctantly and a wave of cool air washes over me. Ah, glorious air conditioning. In the winter, the grocery store offers warmth, while in the summer it offers AC. I prefer the summer, as in the winter the front is usually caked with dried salt, mud and other nasties from wet shoes tromping in and a certain lack of rugs. There's a container of disinfectant wipes near the door to wipe your cart handle, as if touching the wipes container to get one wouldn't give you Herpes. Please. The store is coated in nasty and I'm not dumb enough to believe a sanitary wipe is going to save me.
I head in and immediately wait in line. It seems that the display of weekly ads near the front door is always a hot-spot for locals to gather after grabbing their cup of sketchy complementary coffee. I am proud to say that although I live locally, I have not once swapped stories in front of the Basket's ad rack.
Once you move past the first obstacle, the store is ripe with others. Most smart shoppers immediately head to the deli line to get a ticket. It does not matter when you get to the store, there will be a line at the deli. I have gone at 8:45pm and I have gone just before 7am. There is always a line. Always. Without fail. If you pull a ticket and it's less than 20 from the current number being served, you feel this overwhelming sense of joy and luck as if God is personally giving you a high-five. Once, I went to the Basket and there were only a couple of people in front of me. I got a lottery ticket that day and won $2. It wasn't a coincidence.
You can tell who's new to the Basket by observing the deli counter. The newbies grab a ticket with a cart full of food and wait. The seasoned shoppers like myself know better. We grab a ticket with an empty cart and then head back to start our shopping, periodically checking in to see what progress has been made at the deli line. Usually, I can get the dairy and most of the aisles done before they get near enough to my number for me to wait, and remember - I go an hour before they close when it's not nearly as busy as it is during the day. I haven't figured out why there are only 4 meat slicers at the deli counter either - it seems that they would need at least 10 to reasonably keep up with the demand, but hey.
Shopping the aisles is an experience. You maneuver around pallets of food being re-stocked, abandoned carts, ladders and everything else you can think of. Some aisles are impassable. I weigh my options and decide that if I want ketchup that badly, I'll buy it at BJ's. Towards the end of the dry goods I start skipping aisles that are completely blocked with fatigued and confused shoppers that have given up on life. Inevitably, in the paper goods aisle there will be a child that has had an atomic poop and a parent that just doesn't give a shit, no pun intended. The kid will be wailing at 8:30 at night, the mom will look flustered and the dad will look irritated while he eats cookies. This is why I shop alone.
At this point I've been in the store roughly 30 minutes, maybe a little longer. My cell phone rings and it's my husband. I swipe the screen to ignore. He can deal with the kids a little bit longer, after all, this is my ME time, right? The phone rings again. He's mighty slow tonight... ignore.
After I make my deli order, I trek off to the produce section. All of the backtracking I've done to keep tabs on the deli line has added up to at least a mile of walking at this point, so wearing comfortable shoes is a MUST. At the produce department I always chuckle to myself and silently chastise the powers that be for staffing the produce department entirely with brown people. Seriously, old stereotypes persist in my town I guess. They seem happy enough, wearing green smocks, jaunty little hats and chattering away in Spanish. The woman that stocks the tomatoes (I am certain this is all she does, day in and day out) once gave me a look that could kill because a tomato she had just put out didn't pass my quality standards and I put it back. Phew - my nerve!
Halfway through the produce section my phone rings once, twice, three times. It's my husband. I answer it thinking that there really must be an emergency for him to call so many times. "How's it goin'?" he casually asks. In the background it is chaos. The kids are screaming, the dog is barking and he sounds like he hasn't got a care in the world. "Is everything OK?! Are the kids hurt?" I ask. "When will you be home?" he says. "Why? Did someone get hurt?" He replies, "Nobody is hurt, but I don't know what they want." I look at my phone. It's 8:45. They were due to go to bed 15 minutes ago and my kids are BIG on schedules. "Ok, start getting them ready for bed, I'll be home soon."
I rush through the produce and frozen aisles, forgetting half of what I needed. During the rush, I notice a pile of sawdust and try to not let my mind think about what's under the sawdust, but immediately I think of the child in the paper goods aisle. I do my best to breathe through my nose and not gag. I go through the checkout line and exit into the dark parking lot, instantly becoming alert like a parking lot ninja. For some reason, the Basket's parking lot after dark is a breeding ground for weirdos. I stare down a man dressed as a woman and he/she thinks twice about approaching me after all. I head to my car, unload my groceries into the back and abandon my cart 2 feet from the car door. I will not walk past the druggies eating McDonalds in their car to drop my cart off. No thanks.
I get home just as the clock turns to 9pm. I walk in to what can only be described as the aftermath of D-Day. There are more dishes than I own stacked next to the sink. The freezer is slightly ajar. A thin layer of popcorn blankets 2/3 of the floor. A naked child comes running at me with chocolate smeared across her face screaming, "MOMMY!". My husband is nowhere to be seen.
I venture into the living room to find him parked on the couch with his laptop open in front of him. "Oh hey, you're back." I'm back, but where the hell have you been?! My husband can't be trusted with electronics. He has this problem with computers, televisions or anything else that uses electricity. When said objects are on and within an arms reach, the rest of the world ceases to exist.
I spend the rest of my night putting two kids on a sugar-high to bed, unpacking groceries and cleaning the complete destruction that has occurred during my hour-long grocery trip, vowing to be quicker next time. Maybe I'll buy pre-packaged deli meat. Maybe we'll stop eating bread or vegetables or milk.
No comments:
Post a Comment