This week, we decided to go to WinCo on Wednesday, because, I mean, who goes to the grocery on a Wednesday afternoon?
It had not been a great week—work had been a pain, our joints were aching—but our vacation was to begin on Friday afternoon, and we didn’t want to start the vacation with an errand. Thursdays, on the other hand, are never great at WinCo because, well, no one wants to start their time off with an errand, either, so Thursday was right out. Thus, Wednesday it was and, despite the fact that I was working with an injured ankle, and she was working with a bum knee, and we were both grumpy from [gestures to everything in general], off we went to WinCo because like I said, who goes shopping on a Wednesday afternoon?
I’ll tell you who goes shopping on a Wednesday afternoon. The entire 4th Battalion goes shopping on a Wednesday afternoon, that’s who.
Well, not literally, but damn, it seemed like it.
The parking lot was only middling full, but once we entered the store it was clear that something was up, something was different. Patrons stalked the aisles slowly, cautiously, as if expecting an ambush, as if raiders lay in wait around the end-caps, ready to rush in and capture the contents of their carts. And oh, those carts were full, so full, full to brimming, full to the point that they made the carts’ little wobbly casters scream from the sheer weight stacked upon them.
These were not casual shoppers. These were not folks stopping by for a quart of milk on their way home.
These people were serious. These people were seasoned veterans. These people were not to be trifled with. You could see it in their eye; heads on swivels, searching for deals, for discounts, comparing unit prices, ounce to ounce, doing long division in their heads, determining cost and return in a blink.
The weaker ones had already been weeded out. We came across the remains: carts half-filled, left askew in the center of an aisle, the contents abandoned as shoppers fled the field.
Walking the aisles, we crossed paths repeatedly with one family—Mom, Grandma, two Daughters—who were pushing two carts like a tractor-trailer rig. Our paltry list, our sparsely populated haul, seemed like a sign of the neophyte, a target for hazing. We added a 12-roll package of toilet paper to fill it out, to make it look like we, too, meant business. Probably a rookie move, but it bolstered our resolve.
We moved quickly but with purpose, efficient but without haste, from produce to baked goods to dairy to frozen foods and, at last, to the rank of checkout lines where we craned our necks and I used all of my 6’2″ height to see which line was the best line.
There was no best line. None.
First, only four lines were open. Four lines and probably twenty people waiting to check out. And with each of those twenty, a cart overtopped, groaning with booty.
Moving blindly to the end of the nearest line, we prayed that some employees would finish their break and open up new queues. God answered our prayer: “No.”
As evidence of how cowed, how shell-shocked we were at this point, I will tell you that it took a full ten minutes before I realized that, ahead of us in line, were Mom, Grandma, and Daughters, the family we’d encountered several times on our trek. And it took another few minutes before I realized that instead of two carts filled with goods, they had three. Three full-sized carts stacked high and deep with items large and small. I admit; I gawked at the scale of it. Literally gawked. Eyes wide, mouth agape, gawking.
“We’re doomed,” I whispered to my wife. I think she may have begun to weep.
But then, as the family approached the checkout conveyor (no, they were not even the first in line, and hadn’t even begun to unload), something happened. Dad appeared.
He had a bag of bagels in his hand. He showed it to Mom. She shook her head, and off he went. He was running recon for her, a scout heading back out into the bush, gathering intel. He came back with two different bags. “English muffins,” I heard her say, but then she took one of the bagel bags. “This’ll be fine,” she told him, and then he was off on another mission.
Then, as they reached the conveyor and Grandma (and Daughters) began placing the first of hundreds of items on the belt, something else happened. Grandpa appeared. And two Sons.
Grandpa and Sons positioned themselves, with an empty cart, at the end of the second conveyor belt (at WinCo, we bag our own groceries). While Grandma and Daughters were feeding items to the checkout clerk, Grandpa and Sons (well, mostly Sons) were bagging up what the clerk had rung up and filling the empty cart.
And over it all, Mom was running the campaign with the smooth confidence of a four-star general. There was no bickering. Hell, there was hardly even any conversation. It was a massive operation, a logistical ballet, all coordinated and directed with a look here, a gesture there, a kind but firm word placed in a listening ear.
And then something else happened.
I realized that, at some point, my annoyance at the interminable wait had disappeared, poof, replaced by a sincere appreciation (and not a little respect) for the quiet, efficient, beautiful functionality of this family team. At some point, my attitude had been changed, and what had before felt like a turbulent trip was now smooth flying.
Sometimes, it really is in how you look at things.
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I find myself in a liminal space, straddling one of modern life’s boundaries, not half-in/half-out, but between and neither, caught mid-transformation.
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 