Shopping Reality

I have several grocery stores within a radius of a few miles and the choices couldn’t be more different. There’s a Trader Joe’s and an expensive co-op and a new huge new Asian market that originated in Canada. Those are what I think of as “sometime” stores. There are plain old chain stores like Safeway or Winco or Fred Meyer, which is Kroger. Then there’s Town and Country, affectionately known as T&C, the one I like to call “the fancy store”. It has the most incredible produce I’ve ever seen. Plus meat and live seafood, a great bakery, and a line of specialty cheeses that, because I grew up in Wisconsin, impresses me. It’s also the place where you are likely to encounter a lot of people that Michael Moore disparagingly called “cappacino drinking, Birkenstock wearing” Pacific Northwesterners. There’s nothing wrong with the large Fred Meyer near my house, When I go there I hear a variety of languages spoken. Spanish, I can distinguish easily. Not so with the Middle Eastern or African languages or the tonal languages of Southeast Asia. I can’t distinguish between Urdu or Hindi, or Thai, or any of the Chinese dialects  But Fred Meyer gives me the best cross section of society and sometimes I shop there solely because of that. Yesterday, though I caved and went to Town and Country. I had a list of seven — SEVEN — things and came out with well, considerably more than that. I mentioned to the checker what a dangerous place that store is, He grinned and said, “We love our over-shoppers. Would you care to take another quick lap around the store before you leave?” I politely declined.

Photo courtesy Squirrel_photos at Pixabay.com