Please try not to laugh, but going to the grocery store has become an event with unanticipated and transformational potential for me.
You’ve got to be kidding! Going to the grocery store is just so, so…pedestrian. I mean, really, when has a grocery store visit been described as possibly transformational, or even a destination visit (except, of course, when you’re really hungry.)
Is this possible transformation due to sugar highs from the Girl Scout cookies bought right outside the store?
No. Please don’t remind me of how high I get eating Girl Scout cookies. Enough already for one cookie season!
Even minus the assistance of any other substances (including the Girl Scout Chocolate Thin Mints), I often feel high prior to leaving the grocery store.
Uh, wait, you want to discuss being high, in public?
Hiding nothing! I will solemnly attest I was feeling high. These sensations can be legal, you know!
O-Kay. Where do we go from here?
How ‘bout the wonderful Shakespearian cliche, “All the world’s a stage?” That’s a dandy place to begin.
Here we go….
The curtain rises as a woman (AKA, me) walks into a grocery store. Looking for fresh vegetables and fruit, but somehow, somehow, my feet carry me to the pastry case. My sighs of embarrassment and acceptance crop right up (plus frustration that this sugar boogie happens when I’m writing.)
Nonetheless, perusing the late afternoon’s slim pickings, very slim pickings, I’m joined by a much older shopper, maybe late 80’s. Now, we’re both perusing the leavings. The other shopper gives up (probably wisely) and rolls her cart away. However, yours truly is inhabited by a ravenous vulture, laser-focused on the measly remnants, any of which might contain a smear of chocolate.
Finally, finally, I walk away, guiltily and furtively, holding my little plastic bag containing a meager chocolate-covered eclair. Just downright pathetic-looking. The much older shopper turns around, as I pass her, and asks if I found something. Jerked out of my embarrassed and downcast state, I perked up and responded that if there’s a chocolate-covered sweet pastry anywhere in sight, I’m a goner. She smiled; I smiled. Found I was standing up a bit straighter after our just-now exchange.
I don’t know why these, unexpected, transformations of mood happen to me so frequently in grocery stores. And, well, OK, pharmacies, or any other store that attracts the general public. It’s almost as if my Jan persona is suddenly transformed into a proximate Mary Poppins, mood-wise. Instantaneously sweet and almost too-good to be true. No matter what my mood is pre-grocery shopping - grumpy, hassled, anything endemic to a busy life - these upbeat conversions still occur.
I’m reminded of a favorite story, “Who Am I This Time,” by Kurt Vonnegut. Seems to nail the theatrical stage on which I find myself treading, interaction-wise, at grocery stores these days. Will I morph into Mary Poppins next visit? I have no idea, but it is fun waiting to see “who I am this time.”
Ah! What better place to practice our theatrics than on the stage of our favorite grocery store! 🤗💛