Grocery Shopping

I absolutely adore grocery shopping. I didn't used to think so but when I look back on my past behavior, I notice that there are two things that I might do when I have a bad day: I either go to a bookstore or to a grocery store.

It might have something to do with the fact that a grocery store is one of the only places I don't feel awkward being alone. In many places, coffee shops, restaurants, movie theaters, etc., I feel awkward when I am by myself. I feel like I'm on display, like my aloneness is something that other people take notice of and scrutinize me for. But for some reason, bookstores and groccery stores don't make me feel that way. There is also the subtle act of picking out food. I like picking out the things that I will eat that night or that week, carefully choosing between different cuts of meats, different cheeses, different lunchmeats, and even between various snackfoods. There is something comforting about it, like putting order to chaos. Some people clean when they want to feel better -- the act of putting your life in order is comforting. Me? I like picking out food. And perhaps the most interesting part of that idea is that I like picking out healthy food. I enjoy putting together natural ensembles -- meat, cheese, fruit, vegetables, grains.

I become more calm after a trip to Publix. I don't know if it became my favorite grocery store before or after I worked there but the favoritism has remained. Maybe it started at some point when I was in middle school. Every Sunday afternoon around 4 or 5 my mom and I would do the family's grocery shopping together. I'm sure I was the one who ended up going because I was the easiest to cajole into the trip. And after a while it became a pattern, a habit. Plus, I learned that if I made the trip each week, I had the power to help choose the family meals and snacks. As a reward for going with her, my mom always let me pick things for my own lunch that my parents would ordinarily have said was unnecessary or too expensive. Suddenly the expensive butter cookies dipped in chocolate were no longer off limits. I could pick the lunch meat. And when we got home, I would try to see how many bags of grocceries I could carry in each trip from the car to the house, always trying to limit myself to two.

Maybe those repetitious trips to Publix have transitioned themselves into a comforting habit. But I know that I always feel better after I buy groceries. Not quite as good as when I buy books but then, how could food ever compete with books?