Late Night Jewel Ramblings

I'm not sure I could live without a 24 hour grocery store nearby. I've gotten so accustomed to it.

Now, there should be no practical reason I need a 24 hour grocery store other than it happens to be close by so I use it. I did not need to buy cat treats at 12.15am tonight, but somehow, there I was, and I enjoyed it.

But a big part of my joy with late-night grocery shopping isn't the odd people you see who also choose to buy food after 11pm (like the Orthodox Jews I saw, or the woman who had a full cart full of groceries), it's the checkout staff.

People who work the graveyard shift at your standard grocery store come in two varieties: the stoned and the lonely.

Unlike daytime grocery staff, those working the night shift do not have the opportunity to speak across the aisle to talk about the only topic they discuss: when are you going on break, I'm about to go on break, when should I go one break, etc. There are many conversations, but they all revolve around a single topic: the upcoming 15 minute pause grocery workers deserve.

The night staff can't talk to pretty much anyone, so some of the younger workers are absolutely stoned out of their mind. They have nothing to add or say to you, so you check out silently, with a minimum of interaction.

The lonely are usually sweet. Many of the Jewel ladies who work late are very eager to discuss my ice cream with me ("Have you tried the peach? It looks so good. I can't wait to try it. They just have the neatest things.") and usually complement you on all of the wonderful things you're buying. They're lonely, but more than happy to strike up a conversation, you, the person who needs toilet paper, cat food, and eggs at 1:25am.

The other group of the lonely take their job extremely seriously. They berate you for having a scratched Jewel Card. They wish to point out the item of the week too many times. They love Jewel, and don't understand why you don't.

I have never worked at a grocery, but I would love to see the combinations of what people look like and what they buy. Stoned or lonely, it would really make the whole grocery check-out job worth it for me. And from what I hear, I even get a break!

(In other news, I had my 2nd encounter with an exotic entertainer in less than a week. While looking for vegan desserts at Whole Foods, we found an entertainer buying bread. In case there was any doubt, she paid with a $100 bill. I guess dancers need brownies and pie too.)

Grocery Store As Surrealism

I'm lucky enough to have received an iPod for Christmas, and I've been enjoying it's powers for supplanting reality. While this can mean on the subway, it's most potent when you have music to transform your trip to the grocery store.

So as I found myself selecting vegetables last night while head bopping to Anubian Lights ('we could have a keggah, from the mecca'), I thought just how totally weird modern grocery stores are.

There are probably 30 types of processed cheese crackers. My store in Northern Illinois, USA sells frozen banana leaves. Big cases with huge chunks of raw meat just sitting on a shelf. The Shotguns News magazine. Plus the scents that are everywhere: flowers, fruit, the music of 'singing in the rain' before water is sprayed on vegetables, a bakery where bad bread smells good.

The iPod is a magical device. Usually the grocery store is just the grocery store. But last night, wandering through Jewel, each aisle was a valley of oddities. And on each trip, I found something newly weird. (Coconut flour? Rosehips tea?)