The Grocery Store

One morning I wandered down to main street to shop for supper for me and Art. I was walking because I didn’t have a driver’s license, I needed the exercise in my seven-month pregnant state, and I was used to walking, since I had walked a lot in Germany.

I was curious what I would find in the grocery store here. The shelves were crowded with strange and unknown items. I picked up boxes and cans to read the labels and sometimes still didn’t understand what was in them. What was Chili? It looked like brown mush. Was it sweet? Some kind of chocolate cereal?

Another thing I wondered about were the people. Where was everybody? In Germany you can’t go into a store without having to jostle around people and wait in long lines, but here, especially this time of day, the store was almost empty. The few women in the store smiled at me and asked if I were Mr. Towne’s new daughter-in-law.

I had a choice to resent this gossipy town and consider the ladies’ friendly inquiries as an intrusion, but decided instead to think of them as trying to be friendly. I reminded myself that Americans are a lot more friendly than Germans. 

Tomorrow will be more about food!