Yesterday--when all my troubles seemed right in my lap.
June 8, 2006Remember when I was all depressed, that day? Boy, good thing I didn’t post to my blog, because really, who wants to read my pathetic, self-involved whining? It would be like watching a kitten with a wounded paw trying to climb some stairs. Am I right, about the kitten? Not even a cute kitten, let me add. One of those hairless types. With a bad eye.
(I just wrote “bad idea” instead of “eye,” which amused me. I like very much the image of a kitten with a bad idea. “I think I’ll mash up some Dexedrine and mix it with a Coke!” thought the kitten with the bad idea. “Kitties need uppers!”)
Yesterday I thought I was feeling better, and then I went to the supermarket. The suburban supermarket is a terrible place. I was so tired of the tiny, cramped supermarkets of Brooklyn, in which all of the aisles are designed to be exactly two inches narrower than the average stroller. Many a supermarket clerk heard the grunts and curses of a disheveled mom trying to hoist her stroller over boxes of yams and Depends in Aisle 6. And oh, I would think, how I would like a car! A car that one could load up with the many groceries, instead of hanging one’s grocery bags from one’s bodily parts and then attempting to drag one’s bag-laden self and one’s ornery child homeward!
But it turns out I was stupid to think these things, because the supermarkets here, they drive me even nutsier. First off, they’re way too big to find anything. You’re looking for some arugula and there are 57 arugula aisles, and the organic arugula is in one of them but you’ll never know which, and then you think SCREW THIS I’ll just grab some romaine hearts and the romaine hearts are 300 miles away, in the Romaine Wing (Hearts Aisle). So even if you’re going to the store for three items, it will still take you a day and a half. Pack a lunch.
And also during the day, the only other people in the supermarket are senior citizens. Not just senior citizens—ultra-seniors. The over-90 set wanders the many aisles all day long, looking for the bus back to their assisted living facility. They like to amble in front of your cart and demand that you help them located the roasted cashews.
Finally, starving and exhausted, I staggered to the cashier, who asked for my Super Value Savings Saver Plus Card, and I had to tell her I didn’t have one. She looked at me like I had just confided that all these groceries were for my satanic baby-eating feast. "I don’t understand," she said, and I said, “I—I just don’t have one“ and she said “You have to have one,” Shop-Rite must have your personal information before you can partake in the savings, which of course isn’t true, strictly speaking, but is true for these exceedingly concerned cashiers who just want you to get the savings! The sweet savings! So finally she got the special Newcomer Courtesy Card or whatever that enabled me to save 38 cents, and she let me go. But it still took me 45 minutes to get to my car because of all the old people who died on their way to the exits.
I finally got to my car, where I cried into my steering wheel, because I still couldn’t see the humor in any of it. Luckily it’s hitting me today. A little late, but it’s coming to me.
Reader Comments (113)
But the sarcasm is coming back and that's the first step in Suburban Survival.
No question.
Don't tone it down. Though sometimes really perceptive truths can be more poignantly funny than exaggeration.
Sorry if I sound patronizing. Really, I am sorry. And it is possible to be something and know you are it.
Sorry, yes, that was exaggeration.
I should be cool here and write a few quick lines about how I love your blog and you're always funny and entertaining, but I am just not all cool, so sorry again.
I love you Alice!
Sorry, yes, that was exaggeration.
I should be cool here and write a few quick lines about how I love your blog and you're always funny and entertaining, but I am just not all cool, so sorry again.
I love you Alice!
Girl, don't got grocery shopping on a Sunday afternoon EVER. They BUS THE OLD PEOPLE to the grocery store on Sundays. I'm not even kidding.
After this casheir found out we didn't have a card, she kept on insisting to my wife that they needed her personal information so we can obtain the savings. I then told the casheir "Listen, just take the money", so she said "But we need your information", like a snob ass Verizon telemarketer. I then told the casheir "Are you on crack?", but before I could continue, my wife cut in with her first ever funny "Honey, she's not strung out, just slightly retarded". The girl then got mad, rung us up, and we was out of there, tripping over a few elderly along the way to our car. They was laying everywhere!
Also apparently I hate old people. Geez, people, lighten up.
Keep on keepin' on.
Keep on keepin' on.
Alice - get hold of yourself. Big supermarkets are GREAT. You have to know how to work 'em, baby. First off, you should never arrive at the cashier's belt "starving"... you're in a GROCERY STORE, for the love of Mike! Why do you think they have those great little pyrex containers full of candy, with the scoops handily stored right where you can reach them as you cruise by?
And who the hell is going to arrest you for popping open one of those ubiquitous and much-maligned cans of cashews and munching a couple while you cruise the magazine aisle? As long as you bring the can to the register and pay for it, they could care less if you eat them in the store!
As far as what's in what aisle - after you've been to the same store a couple of times, you should have that down pat.
You'll know you've really settled in when you can cruise through that puppy in fifteen minutes, AND use the "self checkout aisle" without setting off all the alarms.
Best of luck! I know you can do it.
- M
I'm a newcomer to reading your blog. I'm far away (New Zealand) and your life does seem at once very foreign and different, and yet similar too. Maybe it's living with a pre-schooler, not being a full-time paid worker, something like that.
Anyway, I read the Bloomfield Buzz, and it did seem like there were some encouraging things about the place - I liked the sound of Alphabet Art. And free mammograms (that sounds kinda weird, but you know what I mean, I hope. Not in a "cool, I've been wanting to get my boobs checked out!" sort of way, but in a general caring-for-the-community way). A new cafe with delicious ice-cream, that sounds nice. Still a way off feeling like home, but it might be a start.
I'm hoping that you read all these comments, and that knowing so many people are wishing good things for you somehow makes dealing with all the changes more bearable.
I want to live in New Zealand.