Cursed Tongue: Lament of the Lumpy Yogurt

Posted by CursedTongue on June 11, 2006

When we were looking for a house, I was hoping to discover something much closer to our apartment than the area where we found a house that looked easier to fix-up than burn to the ground and start over. I held out hope for a decent house in that area, not only because it was fairly close to my husband’s job, but also because we’d gotten to know our surroundings.

We moved a mere six miles from that apartment, but it meant learning a new neighborhood. And the search for a grocery store is no easy matter. We are infamous for cheating on our grocery store, but we usually have one that’s close by, which we haunt pretty regularly. Someplace with a decent selection, a cleanly atmosphere and preferably a Starbuck’s.

Although my husband is willing to drive 10 miles to Fry’s Marketplace, his favorite grocery store, ice cream sandwiches melt quickly when the temperature is above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. (Fry’s is a regular grocery store, and Fry’s Marketplace is a Fry’s with a mini department store, a drug store and a cafe.)

Near our house there is a Super Target we can walk to, if we don’t mind pretending that the three-lane street we have to cross has a crosswalk. We have a Super Wal-Mart nearby too, but Target is expensive for everyday grocery shopping, and my husband has fervent moral outrage for Wal-Mart.

“Don’t encourage them,” he tells me. But I think it’s a wee bit too late for that. If life were a Star Wars movie, the Death Star would be blocking out the sun over Bentonville, Arkansas, and the mega chain of mega stores with unbelievable prices would be called Darth Wal. And I believe that Luke Skywalker would purchase his light saber replacement parts there.

Of course, it could simply be the vastness of the store, combined with my tendency to wander off, combined with crowds staring gape-jawed at towering pallets of Zest thus obstructing the aisles that make him hate Wal-Mart. (Mr. High Moral Ground has no qualms about spending money at Starbucks, which is steadily percolating into every nook and cranny in the U.S.)

Also near our house is a Bashas’, a terribly expensive store with unhappy employees and a liquor department with an unrivaled selection, and a grungy, poorly laid out Fry’s that’s older than the abandoned shacks, upon which they built the Super Wal-Mart. While exploring Bashas’ we saw a man in a dingy white t-shirt, with two young children in tow, pile cases of Budweiser and cartons of cigarettes on the belt at the checkout. He smiled broadly at the cashier and said, “Just stocking up on a few essentials.”

After a few months of driving around like tourists who had their map ripped from their hands by the wind, we decided we liked Albertsons. (I know a few months sounds like a long time, but we didn’t have a lot of opportunity to spend our weekends investigative grocery shopping, so the process was as long and painful as possible.) This grocery store was special. It was always sparsely populated. And the Albertsons store brand low-fat plain yogurt is the nectar of the gods compared to the lumpy runny mess Fry’s likes to call yogurt. (No, I didn’t accidentally pick up cottage cheese.)

It was the nearby Albertsons where we got to know the cashiers and the baggers. It was where we went for dry ice when our refrigerator crapped out. We’d been there late on many weeknights, stocking up on real essentials, like milk and eggs and strawberries.

Last night we went for our weekly shopping. And we saw a woman holding a sign with eye-crossing colors. It read, “CLOSING SALE BLOWOUT.” The woman wasn’t in uniform and was standing by herself in the aisle, her weight shifted onto one foot. She glanced up at the ceiling and shmooshed her lower lip slightly to the side with her fingers; a distracted gesture, that gave her the air of a tornado victim. Her hair was slightly disheveled and I was vaguely hoping that she was a crazy woman who had wandered in with the sign. This being the suburbs and far from tornado country, though, I didn’t think that was very likely.

By the time we had come back up the next aisle the manager was there and two signs were dangling from the ceiling. We sheltered a hope that they were moving the store, but after about 30 seconds of Internet research, I found that Albertsons is closing 100 stores that under-performed. We should have been wise to the utter emptiness of the place.

We’ve lost our favorite nearby grocery store. We’re going to have to shop our plan B store, probably the dilapidated Fry’s, in the hopes that whatever is being built in the dirt lot with a sign that reads “Grocery Store Anchored Shopping Center,” will be bigger and better than our quiet little corner of the food merchandising universe. And who knows, this may be my grand opportunity to buy my very own shopping cart. A couple of ski poles and some turn signals later, and I’d have transportation to the Super Target. I think the carts even come with cup-holders.

- Sarah Letnes

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