Groceries

While I was in school, Ryan and I had a number of conversations about the toxicity of Wal-Mart to Mom and Pop shops. I'm not a fan of Wal-Mart, no major insight there. I have had friends who work for them and I can respect what they have accomplished in a tough market, but I don't have to like the business tactics.

Ok, so on with the story. There is a little corner grocery store that since the day I moved to town I have frequented. Even when I started looking for a house, I wanted to stay close to where my apartment was because of the corner store and the comfort I had found in the area. The corner grocery has changed hands many times during my almost 10 years here. And I have always wondered why anyone buys it because I can't imagine it makes much money. Anyway, since I am rarely home, it is a good place for me to pick up the few items that I need to tide me over until the next trip. So today I stopped in to pick up some veggies and such. The two women in the check out in front of me wrote checks for their items. I don't write checks except to the kid who mows my lawn. I don't carry a checkbook. And watching the regime required to pay with a check confirmed that was a good decision. The line was quite long by the time I got to the front of the line. And though I only had a few items, it consisted of wild diet cherry pepsi and lots of veggies that didn't have bar codes! The poor kid, I felt bad for him because there was a long line and he obviously was new. I couldn't find the price for the garlic. He had to ask me if my yam was in fact a yam. And he didn't know what type of onion I was buying. I felt uncomfortable for him. We finally got through it and I think he was relieved to see me pull out the debit card.

I was thinking to myself I probably would have been annoyed had this happened at Target or Wal-Mart, but it was amusingly endearing for it to happen at my corner store.