I’m dragging my son through a medium sized shop-up at h’ford...we are on the home stretch, in the refridge/freezer section, I’m leaning in to get butter, I pop back up from the glass door just as an old lady whizzes past me with her cart. Instead of apologizing for almost clipping me, she starts shaking her head with the “There’s No Accounting for Some Assholes These Days" look on her face. What??! I long to track her down, ask where she got a sense of self-entitlement that allowed her to non-verbally imply that I was the shit head in our little freezer aisle do-si-do. It was only the fact that this is a small town, and I have a tax-payer supported job that stopped me from unloading on her.
Everytime* I long to start a verbal tirade that would cause moms to hussle their children away while other folks stand by watching with half-expectant smiles on their faces (born of the pleasure of having their boring grocery shopping spiced up with a mild altercation and the delicious feeling of realizing “Thank heavens this isn’t me"). I resist retorting because I don’t want to see the “Local Librarian Goes Loco” headline in the Around Town section of our local rag. But if it ever happens, I hope they have fun with it, work the citation angle, perhaps, maybe opine that I was OVERDUE for some R&R based on my tirade.
So, there I am pushing my cart, that, if it was powered by my umbrage, would be flying through the walls like a runaway mule team, mentally muttering comebacks like “ I hope your day gets better, lady, so sorry I almost ruined it all for you by somehow being too close to your shopping cart.” Minutes go by, I’m still steamed, so I say to A-Man: “Ugh, I am still so mad at that old lady!”
“What did she do?” he asks.
“Well, she was just getting so upset about such a stupid, little thing!” And then my boy drops the gentle wisdom bomb on me that made the entire black mass of anger and pissiness evaporate: “But now you are getting upset about stupid little things.” Huh. So I am. I have no intention of turning into the wrinkled mass of pure uck I encountered while buying butter (I didn’t think anything bad could happen while purchasing butter) so for maybe the seventh time in my life, I actually let something go. Thanks, A-man. I owe ya one.
Now, my kids rarely attend the shop-ups that go on in the gleaming, air-conditioned splendor of the chain supermarket we favor in town. Both have their own reasons for supporting the maternal solo excursion for foodstuffs. Little Flap Dude does not want to go because he gets so bored he nearly passes out. Flappette peppers me with requests for shit I refuse to buy** every 37 seconds until I nearly pass out. So we agree, I go alone and honor requests for Popsicles and the like. Stop asking for weird shit. Unless your Flap Dude dad is shopping, there won’t be any weird shit in the house.
In general the flap tribe tends to howl pretty badly with unavoidable supermarket excursions loom into their happy existence. However, their attitude about food shopping changed when we stumbled into the exciting world of the RT. 9 Discount store. Now, the actual lay-out is way worse than our regular food store, instead of wide aisles and cool air, you get narrow aisles, creepy, buzzing fluorescents and pitifully stinky bums. And the PSBs were often waaaay too helpful. “Ya need me to hold those ten jarsatomata sauce for ya honey?” One bum hopefully asked the flappette on a typical visit.
Despite the dismal surroundings, the atmosphere quivers with delicious expectation and possibility. From all of us. Myself, I am after Devonshire Cream for .79 (normally 8 bucks for a tiny jar), gorgeous, rough-shaped sugar cubes perfect for Old Fashioneds, fancy tea that folks weren’t willing to buy at the regular price. What I’ve realized about discount stores is that they have bottom barrel dreck, absolutely, but right alongside the dreck sits super fancy shit that was not only too expensive for the typical Yankee shopper, it’s just too odd, or difficult to use. A typical reaction from me at Rt. 9 Discount store: “Yay! They have jaggery!”
I think my kids like going to Rt. 9 Discount because no matter what we may find here, my children will hear their their favorite word over and over, whatever the request. Yes, they will hear yes. Yes, I will buy the giant bag of dum-dum suckers, the bucket of sour mesquite fruit twizzlers, the weird cookies from Guam, the Pineapple Colada Cola....why ever not, all these items together total four dollars and thirty-eight cents. And not only was the store a treasure cave of crazy candy for the kids, it was a museum of odd comestibles that never failed to fascinate and educate. Hannaford Supermarket holds no such surprises. There, you find bananas. Wow. Rt. 9 Discount? Banana ramen noodles. WOW.
It was in this atmosphere of glee at knowing anything is the store was Yours, yet having no idea just what it might be (or in many cases, what is actually was), that Archer and I stumbled onto the 50% poignant 50% hilarious leftover Easter candy bunny "The Professor". His chocolate head had broken away from his neck, the yellow candy eyes were pressed against the thick cellophane window. Who knows what kind of journey he had been on that landed him at the at this dead-end for all things edible. "The Professor "had a pathetic traveling companion on the shelf to hold his chocolate paw, "Parsnip Pete". He cost $1.49. We bought him, and Parsnip Pete. Pete was going for .99 cents.
Obviously we are always in a giddy mood when we are in this store (banana ramen has that effect) but the day we found "The Professor", the high spirits were fueled by that kind of crazed emotion that comes from knowing the fun will end soon. We were, in fact, shopping at Rt. 9 for the very last time. We had heard the rumors for a few weeks. The cashier with the tattooed neck had mentioned that it was slated to close. Something about how "they weren't making enough money". Huh, selling soup for .39 a can and you can't cover yer nut, huh? Who would've thunk? So, we encountered this uhh... Egg-Headed Easter Bunny (SORRY) and couldn't just leave him there. Not with his chocolate head askew, the blue candy pupils dilated in agony. It's all for the best, anyway. What kid today would want this Palmer relic greeting them on Easter morning? How did a stuffy intellectual persona even make it as a Palmer Rabbit mold?
If I was a good journalist I'd be on the phone to Palmer HR, getting the scoop on this antiquated ideal of a chocolate Easter rabbit. I bet they've been pouring this mold since the 1950s, back when our society fell in love with mocking the cerebral types. Hey, Palmer marketing types, time to review your rabbit molds!
Now the Rt. 9 Discount store is closed down. Empty. No more size 45 pants, brown-stained, for dollar. No more diet martini mixer, no more wall of out-dated sugar-crusted breakfast cereal from supermarket chains through-out the Northeast.
I'm back to shopping alone at Hannaford. Pushing my cart while avoiding mean old ladies, missing the bums.
*happens about five times a day
**H'ford, I beg of you, stop with the beanie babies in the card aisle.
