Beautiful People

I went commando grocery shopping last night and hit four different places and got four very different slices of life. I actually brought my new little mini camera with me and I wished I could have snapped actual pictures of some of the scenes that registered in my brain, but I didn't want to be arrested. I'm a shy photographer, unfortunately, unless I'm at an event where photography is expected. At my local Sam's Club, though, besides looking like a bit of a pervert, there is also the concern that my brand new little candy apple red camera might be stolen also.

I hate grocery shopping, I used to actually order food online back when we had a service that would do that and it was wonderful. I don't really mind getting the little things, but hauling cartons of soda, gallons of water and 12 packs of toilet paper gets old really fast. And it fills up my cart and my car.

I started out my evening expedition with Sam's Club first because I had four prescriptions to pick up and their pharmacy closes at 7 pm, and I didn't leave the house till 6:40. (Yes, I hate people like me also, but at least they were called in way ahead of time) The Sam's Club we use is the one across the street from the Astrodome, which is also probably the busiest and most ethnically & economically diverse one in Houston. There are several others that are only a few miles further, in nicer, safer neighborhoods, but I like the Dome one. I can drive 2 or 3 miles and jump on the freeway against rush hour traffic and I'm there. And I get to drive past the Dome. I used to get to see Astroworld also, but it's being dismantled to build high-rise condos, and all I can see of it after dark are some beams jutting over the fence that are the remains of the big roller coaster and an occasional bulldozer. So much for childhood memories, memories are all you're allowed to have growing up in Houston, nothing lasts more than 20 or 30 years max.

So I arrive just in the nick of time, so close I didn't even dare stop to pick up a shopping cart on the way in, I just ran straight across the store to the pharmacy to grab a place in line before they turned the lights out. There was only one person on doing double-duty as pharmacist and cashier, poor thing, but she moved as efficiently as possible and I managed to get my $140 worth of prescriptions (I don't have any insurance) and then I had to trek back across the store to retrieve a shopping cart for the half other dozen things I also needed, several of which were frozen. I can't hold anything cold, my hands go numb in about 30 seconds. A man of what looked like Middle Eastern descent sat at one of the picnic tables, scarfing a pizza down with a palette parked beside him stacked above my head with canned drinks and pre-packaged foods. A grinning little Hispanic girl dangled upside down from the handle of a shopping cart like it was a jungle gym, her long black hair streaming out beneath her.

I found an abandoned cart near the check out lanes and started off back across the store to get my packing tape and frozen items. Sam's is not a place to go when you're in a hurry, or if you have difficulty walking as I do, but where else can you buy six pound bags of meatballs? I'm usually one of those people who is in a hurry, though, and navigating the clumps of families stopped to admire the giant bags of potato chips and cases of green beans without hitting anyone with my cart is always a challenge, but I have many years of experience from working in retail environments so I'm actually very good at it.

I got my meatballs, frozen hamburger patties, my box of little deli spirals hors d'oeuvres that I've been snacking on lately, a six-pack of mailing tape for my Ebay packages, a party sized box of croissants, and a box of Prilosec in a huge plastic package, and packed all the cold stuff in my little thermal storage bag in my trunk and headed off to my next stop.

But first I had to get to the other side of the freeway, which doesn't sound difficult, but we have a new Metro light rail train that runs through the intersection I have to cross coming and going. After about five trains came through, (which is one of the reasons I brought my camera, see below) I finally made it through the left turn light and shot onto the freeway.

I actually planned my errands in a sort of a circle, but the exit ramp I needed was closed for construction, so around the loop I went back north towards the Galleria, exiting at Bellaire Blvd., where some sort of major police activity was taking place because half of the Bellaire PD had turned out with lights flashing on the other side of the intersection, but I was turning so I didn't get to rubberneck.

My next stop was Whole Foods in the middle of the very yuppie, very nice upper class Bellaire/West University part of town, which are actually little incorporated cities within Houston. In Whole Foods all is peaceful and polite, voices are kept low and no one races through in a hurry. Not everyone is wealthy, most of the employees and many of the customers are working class, even the expensive cars in the parking lot usually have at least one bumper sticker (John Kerry for President is the most common), there is even an occasional homeless person hanging out in their eating area, but you feel very safe shopping there. The sheriff's officers that guard the store are very alert.

My shopping list for this store consisted of two items - a dozen bottles of Tazo Iced Green Tea and a new bottle of Bach Elm Flower Essence (helps you when you feel overwhelmed by responsibilities). It's very easy to get distracted in Whole Foods, so I headed straight for the tea aisle. I buy a dozen bottles at a time to get the big 10% case discount and also because they're hard to find in stock. Some sadistic stocker had moved them to the very top shelf, though, so an employee (who was as petite as I was) had to hand them down to me from a stool.

Then over to the vitamin section to get my Flower Essence. I am one of those people that actually uses homeopathic remedies (in additional to my 'real' pharmaceuticals) and they seem to help. At least they make me feel like I'm doing something positive, who knows. I decided to get two different ones, I already had a full bottle of Rescue Remedy and of Olive (helps you when you feel utterly tired both mentally and physically), so I stood there for like ten minutes reading the descriptions on all of the bottles. I would have bought several, but they're $13 a bottle. I only had to fend off two helpful salespeople, they are accustomed to people standing and staring at their shelves with a glazed look. I settled on Mustard, which helps you when you get depressed without any reason, I actually have reasons to be depressed but figured what the hell.

Knowing I had two more stops, I purposely avoided the bakery and their wonderful (cold & perishable) desserts, and went straight to the checkout, where I was actually called over by a clerk who could take me right away, and had a sacker that packed all of my bottles in little individual bags.

Then it was back to my neighborhood for the last two stops. Our two major neighborhood grocery stores, Kroger's and Randall's, sit facing each other across a freeway. They used to be pretty much the same in style and patronage, then Randall's upgraded their furnishings, flooring, became a little more gourmet, dimmed the lighting, added a Starbuck's, a bigger Kosher section and put themselves in the slightly nicer category. The prices are about the same, but you feel a little classier walking through Randall's. The crime stats seem to be about the same for both stores, though. I've been at Kroger's when a woman was robbed at gunpoint in the parking lot, and arrived at Randall's just after an elderly woman who refused to let go of her purse was dragged to death behind a van.

Kroger's does have one thing that Randall's doesn't, pre-popped popcorn in bags (my husband's nightly snack), so I went there first. I also had hoped their customer service would still be open because my car plates expire in a few days, but no luck. I'm more familiar with the layout of Kroger's, so I got my popcorn, some Ritz sour cream & onion chips for me, Starbuck's latte, then filled up the cart with bottled water, 12 packs of toilet paper, boxes of kleenex, cereal, and all the bulky things I usually can't buy in multiples. They had no Diet Mountain Dew for Sparky, though, that stuff goes fast for some reason. Then I grabbed a few small things, just in case Randall's didn't have them - a bag of cat treats, a bottle of contact drops, and on a whim, a tube of Preparation H, which I've never bought before, but I've been having some problems lately so it seemed like a good thing to have around.

The shoppers were mostly very typical of the neighborhood. The store sits on the edge of several older, established neighborhoods, and is bordered by some rather dangerous low-income apartments. There several women pretty much like me - middle class, 30 to 40-ish, with ponytails, jeans and sweatpants. There were a few men the same age, shopping alone, wearing yarmulke's. An older man moved out of my way as I came around the corner, but he didn't move far enough and I had to actually say excuse me to avoid bumping him because he was standing between two carts and apparently had bad depth perception.

Usually I grocery shop a little later in the evening when the more raucous groups are shopping, but tonight it was very quiet. My little slice of Southwest Houston (from South Main up to the Westpark Tollway) got a big chunk of Katrina evacuees from New Orleans (around 23,000 people), and I've noticed they tend to be more nocturnal than most Houstonians, grocery shopping late into the night, and hanging out at the 24 hour Walmart across the street like it was a social club after everything else has closed down for the night. But that's one of the things I love about New Orleans, is all of the night people like myself.

There were actually two checkout lanes open, later in the evening there is usually only one, and I got in line behind a couple of cute little teenaged girls who were buying their two or three items. They had no sense of grocery store etiquette and one of them stood in front of me ogling the magazines instead of moving forward as her items went up the belt, so I just started unloading my bulging cart right in front of her. She didn't move. Toilet paper, kleenex, popcorn, water, Starbucks's, crackers, cat treats, contact drops... oh hell. Come 'on, girl, move forward. Oh good (quickly stuffing the hemorrhoid cream in the middle of the bags of popcorn).

Somehow I managed to put everything neatly into the cart, but the sacker just could't put it back together again, he's stood there looking at it like it was a Rubik's cube, trying to balance heavy things on top of light things, and then finally gave up trying to sack the last few items. Whatever, it's all going straight into the trunk, just give it to me...

Then the final dash back under the freeway to Randall's to get the fresh foods. They have a better bakery and, for some reason, much healthier looking produce. The store was virtually empty, I got a parking spot right in front of the Starbuck's entrance (closed for the evening, though). I browsed through their little gourmet foods section near the entrance, then onto the bakery where I bought way too many carbohydrates. And for some reason every time I go to Randall's I feel like I have to buy a slice of their German Chocolate cake. It's some sort of masochistic thing because I really don't like it that much, just the top layer with the coconut, because it's usually filled with that oily brown icing, but I have to get one and I'm disappointed if they don't have any. On through to the produce to get salad stuff and hamburger fixings, and down the aisle to the canned goods looking for mushrooms in a jar.

At the end of the aisle stands a male model - tall, dark and handsome, just a little too well dressed, looking over the display of imported olives. And as I reach the end and am trying to make the corner, I'm blocked by his girlfriend - even more overdressed in her acid washed jeans, expensive heels, leather jacket and carrying a very large, very tacky handbag with the word Prada emblazoned across the front in huge letters. Well, at least he's not gay. I'm wondering what these very spoiled, screaming wealthy, beautiful people are doing in this neighborhood. Maybe they need olives for their martinis, the man has a little hand basket with nothing in it. The woman looks like someone dressed her and carefully blew her hair straight for a society event, very casual chic. The guy looks like he gets regular manicures. Neither of them even looked up at me as I almost ran over here with my cart trying to take the corner without knocking over any of the floor displays. She didn't even move as I scraped the wheels of the cart sideways, just stood there smack in the middle of the aisle.

Normally I would have given her an excuse me, but I was afraid I'd laugh out loud. No, I don't hate you because you're beautiful, maybe because you're extremely high maintenance, but I do dislike you because you're so obviously not in touch with reality or anything that is happening around you. We have a lot of beautiful people in Houston, but you don't run into them in grocery stores very often, especially in my neighborhood at 9 pm.

I got my soda, and went to the far end of the store for the dairy section, where I stood searching for 2% milk among lots of unfamiliar labels (I usually get my dairy stuff at Kroger's), and our of the corner of my eye I see a hand reach out past me and grab a carton of milk off the shelf, then holler across the store 'I got the milk'. I turned to see a young teenage boy with long greasy hair, his arms pulled out of his oversized shirt, wearing it like a poncho, go skipping back across the store. Yikes, I must be tired, I didn't even hear him coming.

He and a gaggle of other odd looking teenagers, and what looked like their adult guardian were buzzing around the checkout like bees when I got up to the front, laughing and shouting and bouncing around with way too much energy. None of the checkout lane lights were on, so I pulled up behind them only to have the checkout person shout out 'I'm closed' as he waved me on to the next lane, where two cartons of ice cream sat on the end, just off the belt. Should I move them? No, I just started unloading my cart around them. About half way through, a young black woman wandered over and plopped a couple of items next to the cartons of ice cream. Whatever, I already had a bunch of stuff unloaded, she lost her place by wandering off. About that time I was up, and handed the checker my discount card and said loudly 'paper please' to the sacker, and hurriedely finished placing the rest of my items on the belt.

Somehow I had managed to collect another basket full of grocery sacks, and pulled my cart out into the parking lot, dodging the speed bump and opened all my doors and trunk to awkwardly stuff the new backs in with the other three store's worth of items. I pushed the cart behind the car next to me, and then when I'd gotten in and closed my door, I noticed the car when I went to grab my seatbelt. It was very sleek, very new & shiny, well maintained and I recognized it as an obviously imported German Mercedes two seater. A lot of the execs at the department store I used to work at would display their expensive trophy cars on the ground floor of the parking garage in the reserved spaces created just for them.

I guess the male model would actually have to touch a shopping cart to get his car out. I didn't put it there on purpose, I was just too tired to push it all the way back to the ramp and onto the sidewalk. But it did make me laugh out loud again as I backed my car out and headed home.

Posted by Morticia at January 27, 2006 09:26 PM