First of all, I love the grocery store. I love the Super Mercado, I love the supermarché, I love the Super Target. It’s my favorite place to shop for souvenirs when I travel and it’s a great place to pwander (wander-ponder) on the weekend.
Like, what in the hell is that green spiky fruit? And what on earth is creamy vanilla casein? (Gross, that’s what. Stay away from it). Can you cook cactus? Is garam masala a fancy dog or group of freedom fighters (it’s neither but when you cook with it, sweet Jesus, if you don’t want to fight for the freedom of fancy dogs everywhere). I could spend hours in the grozzzery. I have spent hours in the grozzzery. Probably this is why people talk to me so much in the grozzery. I look like I live there, maybe.
I’m not kidding, it happens a lot….in the checkout line, in the pasta aisle, in front of the brussel sprouts. The checkout girl asks me what I’m making with the kale (juice) and the lady behind me asks what’s for dinner (chicken) and the guy behind her asks what time I’m serving (6:00). Suddenly I’ve been in the checkout line for 15 minutes and it’s not because I’m pulling my change purse from my pocketbook and paying for 3 bananas in quarters. But no one is impatient because they all seem to want to know how I’m going to make my chicken (with panko) and I can’t stop talking in parantheses. It’s like I’m having 4 conversations at once.
I rolled up to the wine aisle the other day (it’s my natural habitat) and had not even said a “hello, my lovely” to the sauvignon blanc when a sweet older woman turned to me and said she was going to a dinner and she didn’t really drink (eyebrow) and was this bottle here a good one to bring? Even though I knew she wasn’t one of my people, I do not judge (I do). She was a babushka away from being my great-grandmother and I’m supposed to say no? I don’t think so.
It doesn’t matter so much what I said (Lasagna? Red is just perfect. Yes, go with the cabernet) but what SHE said when she picked her wine. She thanked me for my help and we laughed because winos laugh with everyone and she said “Oh thank you so much. I should start drinking more!”
I thought I had never heard a sweeter thing. And so you see, you’re never too old to start drinking.
