Growing up in a small town and then living in what might be considered a medium sized city for ten years after college, the grocery store was always accessible. And by that I mean, I never had to consider when to go. Weekends? No problem. Need to make a run on a week night or at lunch time? Just go.
Austin grocery stores are the most insanely busy grocery stores I’ve ever experienced. It is not unusual, if you go on a weekend or at lunch time or after work – the normal times people go to the grocery stores – to have to drive around the parking lot several times before finding a parking spot, use your elbows as defensive weapons to nudge people out of your way when they’re standing in front of the item you need to get, and then, upon checking out, find all registers open with lines that snake eight carts deep up the aisles at the front of the store.
I’ve decided to give up weekend grocery shopping for a month, to see if it makes my life any better. Waiting in line for 30 minutes to check out after playing Frogger, grocery store edition, for an hour doesn’t feel like the restful weekend energy I crave. Maybe someday I should try to figure out how to cope with crowds, but for right now, I’m trying avoidance. Which is why I found myself at the grocery store with a list for a week’s worth of groceries at 8:30am yesterday.
And what a sweet change of energy it was.
Apparently the grocery store also knows that mornings are the best time of day…for restocking everything. Instead of customers lining every aisle, most of them were filled with boxes and crates and employees working to restock the shelves. There was no line at the fish counter, and the man who cut my salmon was cheerful and friendly as he helped me get my order. It was…pleasant, and felt very human. As I was picking out eggs, I ran into a neighbor and felt perfectly at ease taking up space as we caught up, and joked about all the things people hate doing in Austin since everyone moved here during the pandemic, in the middle of one of the main aisles in what is usually a busy part of the store.
After saying goodbye to my neighbor, I walked past the eggs toward the dairy wall. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man next to me pushing a hand truck with four black crates stacked high. He set the hand truck down, and I watched in slow motion as the cart went vertical, the base hit the floor, and all four crates went flying foward. The cartons of strawberry milk inside the crates went flying through the aisle, and the biggest ones burst open upon meeting the floor.
I picked up a few undamaged bottles that landed near my cart and then noticed the gigantic pink puddle spreading across the tiles, a bright and joyful lake in a sea of industry, under the florescent lights. Putting the bottles in my hand back into one of the empty crates, I turned to the employee and told him that it was the most beautiful spill I’d ever seen.
And then, another employee who was standing nearby overheard what I said and responded with,
“Yes, and I’m just waiting for the unicorns to fly in and land in the puddle.”
I could have hugged her. I probably laughed and gave her the biggest smile. And then I spent the whole drive home imagining the delight of unicorns, frolicking in the accident of spilled milk. It was a reminder that the most inconvenient things – grocery shopping, restocking mistakes, and spills – are all possible places to find imagination and joy.
Now 8:30am on a weekday is the only time of day I will go grocery shopping because I might get to see the unicorns descend and play in a giant pink puddle of strawberry milk in the dairy aisle of my grocery store. Grocery shopping at any other time of day or week is dead to me. Hopefully no one else learns of this secret.