The traffic crowd in the produce section is typical for an early morning weekday.
We, shoppers, squeeze beside the employees re-stocking shelves after the weekend busyness. We maneuver around large plastic vehicles that are to our wire shopping carts what semi-trucks are to Mini Coopers.
Workers are busy filling these behemoths for those who for one reason or another can’t come to shop for food for themselves. Those of us who are physically here are dealing with the hubbub as best we can, as we go about our food-gathering business.
In our home’s division of labor plan, one role I assume is hunter-gatherer. It is task I readily accept. I embrace the challenge of hunting down bargains, and I enthusiastically gather the food stuffs that are on our grocery list. Stalking the store aisles and spotting a marked-down dairy item or coming upon a BOGO box of crackers brings a primitive thrill. Sometimes it is all I can do to keep from letting out a primal howl of victory.
On this particular morning I am rolling by one of the refrigerated cases in the produce section. I stop as I notice a marked-down sticker on a package of portobello mushroom caps, the kind Becky and I like to use as a sort of steak substitute. A package of sliced portobellos, also marked-down, sit next to it. Which one to choose? I grab the whole caps, put them in my cart, and slowly creep forward along the case. As I am doing this I start to second guess myself. “Hmm. Maybe I should get the sliced ones instead.” I decide to back up. I am pulling my cart and as I do, I feel a bump and hear a rattle.
“Oh!” I say, as I turn around to see a lady behind her own cart, the one I just backed into. “Oh, I am so sorry,” I immediately say to her, then I say it again.
She is smiling. “Oh, it’s no problem,” she says graciously. Still, I am in an apologetic and somewhat embarrassed mode, so I utter some more mea culpas. “Maybe there should be beep-beep noises when we back up our carts,” she suggests good-naturedly. I agree that would be a good idea. Then I smile sheepishly and pushed my cart away thinking, “I’ll just go with the whole mushroom caps.”
Not to be plagiarizing ideas, but the idea of a backup warning beeper for grocery carts has occurred to me more than once. This often happens when I am imagining a more organized traffic system for grocery cart driving. I start thinking this way as I am wheeling in an open area and trying to anticipate which way the guy rapidly pushing his cart toward me is going to turn, or what the thought plan might be of the lady weaving haphazardly from one side of the aisle to the other.
Now, I get that it wouldn’t make sense to have lane lines painted on the floor, but I start speculating, “Maybe some turn signals on the cart would be useful.” Then I remember how frustrated I get driving in my actual car on actual roads when other drivers don’t use turn signals, and then I become resigned and admit that people don’t always think of others as they are driving cars, or pushing grocery carts or doing just about anything else that involves others. After all, I wasn’t thinking about anyone else when I backed up without looking, was I?
Out of principle, I hesitate to encourage even more rules and regulations in life. For all its randomness and near-chaos, grocery aisle traffic can be lessons in anticipation and attention, something to embrace.
It’s similar to driving in European cities, an experience that I’ve learned will keep you on your toes. Just remember: Whether you are driving on the Isles of Paris or the aisles of Kroger, don’t forget to look before you back up.
Norman Knight, a retired Clark-Pleasant Middle School teacher, writes this weekly column for the Daily Journal. Send comments to [email protected].
