When did grocery shopping become complicated?
I remember my mom whisking me down the aisles of our neighbourhood groceteria without reading a label.
She would hand the clerk $20, get change and load the paper bags full of a month’s worth of food into her bundle buggy and saunter home. The entire process took less than a half an hour. I, on the other hand, set aside an afternoon and a mortgage payment for perhaps a week of meals. It starts with the parking lot, where rules are non existent. Diagonal driving is the norm and vehicles descent like a clip from an untamed video game. With not a space in sight, I become a stalker. I watch for someone behind a grocery cart and follow her to the car.
Turn signal flashing, I wait until she unloads her bags, freshens her lipstick, searches for the seat belt and ultimately pulls out. Three other stalkers have spotted the backup lights. My hands are sweaty, my heart is pounding as I stared down my opposition. I have won but I fear they will beat me to the check out.
I deposit the quarter but I can't unhook the buggy. I suspect they are spot welded but I tug until I free the metal prisoner. The fruit and vegetable area is my first stop. Years of shopping has taught me that the freshest vegetables are on the top row. They are arranged perfectly but I dislodge the pivotal one and they rain onto the floor. Cameras are probably fixed on me so I reluctantly place those bumped and bruised ones in my cart. I check for broken eggs; perishable dates; fat content; calories; dented cans and within 20 minutes I am exhausted. It's time to head to the checkout but it is here I really need my skills.
To select the fastest lane is a complex formula. Step one is to study signs. Express says 16 items or fewer. Some read cash only or bag your own. I wonder if you bag your own will you accept cheque but while I am pondering he places a sign directing me to another cashier who will be happy to serve me. But where is this delighted person? Long lines are at each and no one is smiling. If a register is about to fail, a tape to run out or the customer ahead of me experiencing debit card problems, I will be in that line.
Explain to me why customers are surprised when they have to pay. The cashier announces the total and it is met with numbered silence. The astonished customer begins the painful search through purse or wallet for money or card. Two words make me cringe. “Air Miles?”
An array of family photos and discount cards if displayed before the proper one is found. For years I have advocated a lending library at checkout. Here one could enhance education or read War and Peace at leisure.
However, there are magazines and newspapers to while away the time. It is in the supermarket line that I can learn about the 80-year-old woman who gave birth to twins, or UFO sightings that are usually on the edge of some obscure town. Once back to my vehicle I line up the plastic shopping bags only to find they collapse, leaving an onion to fossilize under a seat.
It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. This week I am working on the design of a refrigerator that fit in my car trunk. Here I will stock the staples and eliminate one step. I am too tired to put it all away.
Originally printed in the Peterborough Examiner, Monday, April 14, 2008
Outtakes by Bev MacLeod