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Monday, December 22, 2003

what I learned about myself at the grocery store

a note of warning: There will be lots of parentheses today. I can feel it in my bones. Beware.


Things I learned at the grocery store this afternoon:


1. I am a grownup.

I was about to bag myself a head of Romaine lettuce (caesar salad for Christmas dinner) when I looked at the price for said lettuce, and made a dismayed noise. (you would have too. Funny how I'll drop $3 for a twelve-pack of aspartame and water, and think that's a fantastic deal, and then balk at the thought of paying $2 for enough vitamin A to last me four days). Anyway. The produce guy, whom I'd always thought looked vaguely familiar but put it off to the fact that he a) lived in the same town as me, which makes EVERYONE look familiar after a while and b) looked like every 30-year-old ordinary-sized blond guy you ever saw, jokingly called out, "Hey, what's the matter over there?" I laughed a little (very very embarrassed! damn!) and said, "Oh, whoops! You weren't supposed to hear my dismayed noise at the price of your lettuce." To which he replied, "ha ha! you must have been in drama." And I went, huh? He said, "You were in drama! [name of my high school, omitted in the naive belief that a stalker, should he WANT to find someone as anonymous and dull as myself, wouldn't be able to using other information in this diary if he made an effort], class of 1993?" Inside myself I was thinking, this guy couldn't have been in my class, he looks... he looks thirty! But he was. ANd then I went (still inside myself, I'm not THIS prone to saying stupid things in public), "duh, you just had a birthday, and you turned ... wait for it ... TWENTY-NINE! You're not old, dearie, but you are, in fact, nearly thirty!" And that was it, another moment of feeling like, whoa, I am a grownup. I remember when I was a girl and a teen, I used to imagine that there would be this day (my 18th birthday figured high on the list here) where I would Be Grown-Up. Then as I actually became an adult I started kind of waiting for the feeling of adulthood to magically just happen one day. I would stop feeling like a kid and be just like all those other adults I saw going around every day. Graduating from high school? Nope. Getting married? Yeah, some. Having a baby? Yeah, some more. This continued along, and then just today I realized, there will never be a day when that happens. I won't wake up and go, NOW, now I'm like all those other adults. It'll grow by degrees until I look at myself and see that I'm old and think, "when did this happen?" Which makes me realize, maybe a lot of other people go around waiting for the same thing. I dunno.

2. I am too soft-hearted.

Exhibit A:
Our town has two podunk grocery stores. One is larger and more modern than the other but a real supermarket would laugh to see that word on the bags for these places. They're big enough to have pushed out all the little grocery stores when they came in (waah! I STILL miss Jack's Market), but really, they're shoeboxes compared to the most modest Raley's. The smaller (and older) of the two is really more like a glorified convenience store, only with less beer and shorter hours. It is run by a really nice Korean family, who moved to town (in fact, they're my neighbors) and bought the place a few years ago. Ever since the bigger store went in when I was maybe ten, the older, smaller one has gotten more shabby and more quiet. This is the store where I generally prefer to shop if I'm feeling a little less well-put-together than ordinary -- I can go there with my hair looking awry and my tackier clothes on and feel less worried about running into someone who will care. Plus it's more personal, and I've shopped there since I got married, and all that. However, if I have more substantial shopping to do, I tend to go to the other store. And -- here's where the soft-hearted part comes in -- I feel SO GUILTY about this. I feel guilty for Sam, the man behind the counter hoping his store will make it. I feel guilty for not helping him -- I rationalize: "yes, but I need three pounds of broccoli today (broccoli soup for Christmas dinner) and Sam doesn't always even HAVE three pounds of broccoli, let alone three pounds of FRESH broccoli." But I still feel bad for going to the other store. I'm so sorry, Sam. Next time, I promise.


Exhibit B:
I was finally done putting things in my cart and I was ready to check out. I picked the line for the elderly male checker, who's new to the store, because I figured he'd be more likely to be slow enough for me (I hate when I'm still fumbling for my checkbook in my purse and the super-efficient grocery drone woman is blinking bright-eyed at me with her hand out). And he was, he was comfortably slow and friendly and a little unsure of what he was doing, just perfect. Then I started picturing to myself (as he was trying to figure out how to ring up my broccoli when it was sold by the bunch instead of by the pound) his job interview with the store owner, a friendly but tough guy who actually moved here from New York twenty years ago, nobody moves here from New York. LA, yes, Bay Area, all the time, but we're generally too soft for New York people. Anyway. I was imagining the interview, and this elderly gentleman (maybe he was looking to supplement his retirement. Maybe he was lonely after his wife died and wanted something to do where he'd interact with people) assuring a guy twenty or twenty-five years his junior that he'd do a good job, and I almost actually had tears coming out of my eyes. WHAT A DORK AM I. (at least I don't feel sorry for uneaten vegetables that have to get thrown out, because of the smiling personified vegetables on produce boxes feeling left out and unwanted, like my husband used to when he was little. When he told me that I KNEW I had to marry that man.)

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