Re-stocking

Snow and all, it felt so nice to return to Chicago today. The holiday with the family at home in Ohio was a much-needed and appreciated break from the daily grind, filled with family parties and good cheer. Even though I felt sad leaving town today, when I closed in on my street in Chicago, I felt the same familiar rush that I get every time I return. There’s no denying it—this city has a profound effect on me.

The rooftops look gorgeous from my window, slanting slopes of white dotted by brick red chimneys. It feels almost Dickensian. If I could ignore the skyscrapers sandwiching the shorter buildings like overbearing older siblings, I might be able to forget time and space, and believe I were living in another century—just for a second. There’s even a church spire visible from my window, which adds just the right touch to the wintry scene. Plus, I can see my patch of lake, to the east, although, in the dusk, it’s becoming difficult to distinguish the water from the sky.

It’s a good thing I’m still in my “return-to-Chicago euphoria,” though, because my visit to the grocery store was almost enough to knock me from my Dickensian dream right back down to reality’s cold pavement. If there’s any one thing I dislike about the city (aside from parking, which we all know is the bane of my existence), it’s grocery shopping. When I lived in Knoxville, going to the grocery store was my favorite errand. I’d go on Sunday mornings, when traffic was light and everyone was in Church, and I’d have the spacious Kroger aisles practically to myself. I could mosey through at a slow pace, grabbing what I needed and anything else that caught my eye. Prices were cheap, the selection was great, and I rarely walked out P.O.ed. I can’t say the same for my weekly (okay, almost daily) trips to Jewel.

For those unfamiliar with shopping at the local Jewel, I will attempt to paint the picture. First, the store itself is small and compact. Like many places in Chicago, it’s about space effectiveness, and fitting as much into a small area as possible, without feeling utterly crowded. But, unlike the city itself, there is nothing that could be done about the local grocery store to detract from the fact that it is utterly crowded. Every hour of every day, in fact, though it’s admittedly worse at 5:30 p.m. on a weekday. The grocery store feeds my entire neighborhood. We’re talking hundreds upon hundreds of people. It’s conveniently located (I presume this is why they can jack the prices up exorbitantly). Therefore—and here’s the kicker—no one drives to the grocery store. What does this mean? It means that people, like myself, are in and out of there multiple times per week, rather than just once, because we can only carry home so many groceries at a time (unless we buy one of those little carts from Walgreens, but I’m not eighty, yet, so I refuse to).

In Chicago, we do not go to the grocery store for a leisurely stroll up and down the aisles. We go with a list of exactly what we want, and know exactly where to find it, and we rush in and rush out as quickly as possible, dodging the hundred or so other shoppers in the store to wait in a long line for self check out, where we roll our eyes if someone stops up the line because they don’t know how to type in their produce code. Yes, I’m guilty of this same impatience. But, I confess that I still don’t know exactly where to find everything that I need, because I sometimes get so frustrated trying to find it amid all the people that I give up and grab a few things and rush out of there as quickly as possible. And let me assure you: Midwesterners are generally nice, but they are not nice in the grocery store. It’s every man for himself in that place. If you don’t watch out, you will get run down by someone’s cart (although, when this happens, there are usually profuse Midwestern apologies, because something like that is enough to penetrate our grocery store funk).

And people do not pay attention (I was not exaggerating about the collisions). Never before have I seen a place filled with so many people with tunnel vision (okay, actually Walmart is a thousand times worse, and I have to admit that between the two I'd rather be at my local Jewel). Sometimes you have to wait in line just to pick up some chicken breasts because the person in front of you is checking the price on every single package before they decide which one they want. Once in awhile I am that person, and sometimes—gasp—I do it on purpose. Sometimes I get so tired of being rushed and pushed around at the grocery store, that I will stand there for three whole minutes selecting the brand of goat cheese I want and I just don’t give a damn whether or not someone’s waiting for me to finish. Now, I admit, this is extremely rare behavior for me, and only happens if I’m having an incredibly bad day. But, honestly, the local grocery store brings out the worst in me, too.

Anyway, today as I was hauling my eight bags of groceries back to my apartment in the snow without gloves because I forgot to put them on before grabbing my bags, I thought to myself sarcastically, “This is what you’re so excited to come back to the city for?” But as I inched away from the Jewel, that grocery store funk started to peel away and I patted myself on the back for being self-sufficient. Then I got home, put my groceries away, plopped down on my bed with my laptop and a yogurt in tow, and decided that the view outside my window is almost Dickensian.