The wonderful Greek fellow who owns the neighborhood grocery store does not like to see me coming. I walk in the door, and he immediately posts up on the end of an aisle with his arms crossed. During my entire visit, he peers down each row with a threatening expression, thinking I am a suspicious character. Well, it’s true that I don’t do as the natives do.
There are grocery carts (four of them) at this store, but I may be the only one who uses them. They are not regular size, mind you. They are kiddie size, so that they can fit down the extremely narrow pathways that are the five (yes, I said five) aisles in this store. The whole shebang is as big as a master bedroom. In fact, that is what I am going to call it from now on. I am not going to the grocery store anymore, I am going to the grocery room.
“Hey, I am going to pick up something for lunch; anybody need anything from the grocery room?”
You can’t even turn around a corner decently with the shopping cart, which is probably why people don’t use them. Occasionally, a patron will grab one of those plastic baskets you can hang from your forearm, but most people carry the entirety of their merchandise in the crook of their elbow. An old woman pays for one apple. The law student behind her has selzter water. A hurried mother waits in line to buy a can of soup and some butter. Her kid pays for a pack of chewing gum with his allowance. Someone has sardines. A man buys a bagel.
People in Texas buy in bulk. The people in this NY neighborhood buy in bits.
So it is no wonder the store manager watches me. He sees me going down every aisle with uniformity, pivoting on my heel at the ends of the rows in order to turn the cart in a 360 on one wheel. When the duration of my grocery shopping experience is only seven minutes, I am not satisfied, so I go at it again … first it was east to west, now west to east. The stockboys head toward the back freezer so fast, they nearly knock me over. We tango so that they can get past me and my unwieldy mini-cart. Something like 24 people have come and gone while I have been wandering with purpose from corner to corner. I consider: Am I really about to purchase 32 ounces of cranberry juice for $8.69?
Oh, yes. I am.
Which is another thing. How can they charge four times as much for eggs but only give you half the carton? I don’t get it. But that’s okay because the owner of the grocery room does not get me. Especially after watching me take this picture.