Grocery Stories

We are greeted as we enter a grocery store with a friendly voice behind the quick check out stand by the door. A stocker loads huge crates of bananas, potatoes and grapefruit to the produce display table tables with a stoic posture. A grumpy-faced woman bemoans the inventory in the health and beauty section, while her manager cheers her on, taking up the slack on the work that she avoids. A shy-looking girl is suddenly chatty when asked where to find dental floss.

Then, there are the customers in the grocery. An older woman frets about how items have moved from where they used to be, while another grumbles about the sheer volume of choices in picking out a shampoo. A young mother admonishes her noisy child as a stooped over man brags to a vendor about the benefits of honey and cinnamon.

When we enter the grocery store, most likely we do not know 95% of the people in there, unless it is a small store in a small town. Regardless of whether we know the checker, the deli server or the fish market employee, how well do we really know them? Did the cute produce guy dye his hair red and have his ears and nose pierced to irritate his parents, or is he just wanting to stand out? Is the very thin, unusual-looking housekeeping woman really in pain physically or is she benefiting from the grocery's health plan to obtain strong medication and time off?

The questions about the screaming child and his household life to the wildly-dressed young adults to the perfectly coiffed older shoppers could overwhelm me as I do my 10 hours of weekly work in four such stores in small town Texas. But I've decided to pursue these stories and tell stories of my own, some from the mouths of those employees and customers, and some fictionalized from the small amount of data I've collected in talking to them.

For me, it's a larger story worth pursuing, to give some insight to the people that arrange, prepare and sell us the food and other consumable items that we need to keep us fed, clean and happy. Stay tuned for more posts.