So tired of taking a number
/The Boston Globe
January 27, 2008
Beverly Beckham
`Reframe," is what my friend Anne tells me every time - and the times have been many - that I've phoned her to moan about having to go to the grocery store.
She says I should think about all the people in the world who would love to trade places with me, who would be thrilled to be driving - not walking in sand, in snow, barefoot and hungry and in penury - to a place packed with all kinds of "wonderful" things.
But this is because she's from northern New Hampshire, where grocery stores are still grocery stores, not mammoth buildings where you feel obliged to pick up prescriptions, do your banking, buy a small appliance, splurge on flowers, read a book, and grab a $3.50 cup of coffee because you may as well do something while waiting for your cheese to be sliced. Because despite the mega size and the mega improvements of all these so-called superstores, the delis in these behemoths remain archaic, the line for cheese, no matter what time of day, always out the door.
I have tried to think of the deli in a positive light. Really. I have reframed so often that I could get a job at the Met. I have given thanks for the excess. The different kinds of turkey. The array of cheddars. The yummy corned beef and assortment of pickles and all the salads. Who knew there were so many ways to make chicken salad?
I have told myself how lucky I am - that I can eat chicken salad, that I like chicken salad, that I have money to buy chicken salad.
But do I have the time to wait for chicken salad? No. The person at the deli - OK, sometimes there are people at the deli, but most often it's a solitary person doing the slicing and packing and calling out "Next!" - is always on, say, 41 when my number is 65 and I think, What am I doing? Because I know that Mr. 42 all the way up to Mrs. 64 are not waiting around for a half-pound of American cheese sliced thin, please. No! They want ham and pastrami and provolone and potato salad, and some chicken salad and maybe some macaroni salad.
I want chicken salad and macaroni salad and American cheese, but I want to get home before it's the next day. So I scrunch up my number and stuff it in my pocket and buy spinach and mushrooms and an avocado, thinking that this is far more healthful than food with mayonnaise. And I feel good about this choice for a while. Until I'm home and hungry and don't want a spinach salad - what was I thinking? - and order a pizza with extra cheese. And until a week later when I remember the spinach and mushrooms - and have to throw them away.
Reframe.
I love the breads at the grocery store. The smell of them cooking. The doughnut holes. The hermits. The scones.
I love the ice creams. And the fresh fruits and the organic chicken and that you can get avocados even in January.
But what I don't like is that you have to walk a city block to get from the avocados to the breads!
Walking a city block is good exercise. But really what I am exercising most every time I shop is my patience.
This is what I wish: that the superstores would reframe. That instead of BIG, grocery stores would try to be better. Instead of saying to a customer in search of something, "Try Aisle 8," an employee would say, "Let me show you where that is."
And lead the way.
Instead of chatting with a co-worker while ringing up an order, cashiers would pay attention to the customer, make eye contact, and smile.
And instead of having too few baggers - superstores are as short on baggers as they are on deli help - have too many. Then baggers could do what they do at smaller grocery stores, what customers would love for them to do: walk them to their cars and load the groceries for them.
I wish.
