Tantamount To A Miracle

I was driving around grocery shopping the other evening and here are
a few things I noticed:

1. My local impersonal, grocery-store/warehouse is going downhill along
with the rest of society and I'm kinda sad about it because they really
have the best produce section in the greater Lime Plant City area. What
I noticed the other night is that they are selling fewer items in larger
quantities. For example, there aren't many small jars of mayonnaise
available. You have to buy the large jar which I don't want because my
cupboards are too small. And, I only wanted ONE roll of paper towels but
I had to buy two in a package and that made me start thinking about how
little storage space I have and how if I'd married a dentist I'd have a
big, walk-in pantry full of space for hundreds of rolls of paper towels
and this train of thought really got me down.

2. The cost of things is on the rise, which is understandable since we
import everything and the dollar is practically worthless. But, still,
$4.20 for two rolls of paper towels is ridiculous. In my world, paper
towels are "throw-away" items. But, now I'm going to have to wash them
out and hang them on the line to dry for reuse.

3. The music in the store was hideous. I just wanted to grocery shop,
not attend a Foo Fighters concert. The median age in the store on this
particular Wednesday evening was about 70 and all us geriatrics were
bumpin' and grindin' our way through the isles getting more and more
riled up and irritable with each passing decibel.

Note to Grocery Store Corporations: I shop less when I'm pissed off.

And, what were those parents with the obviously extremely-sick-and-
feverish-toddler-slumped-over-in-the-shopping-cart thinking?! Why would
they subject their red-faced, sniffling, hacking baby to such vile music?
However, if their goal was to infect half of northeast Ohio with the plague,
well then, they probably succeeded.

The final straw was that I noticed this store no longer stocks Lunds
Pancake Mix, which, as any serious pancake eater knows, is the best
pancake mix on the four innermost planets in this solar system! And,
they have great packaging. I guess Lunds wasn't corporate enough to
compete with, say, Bob's Mills...yuck!

I didn't actually want to buy any Lunds, but it just made me mad that it
had been removed from the shelves. So, I stomped off with what I had in
my grocery cart (which is bigger than my Geo), paid for everything, even
the over-priced paper towels, and got in my dinky car to go over to the
other major grocery store a few miles away.

Only a few miles away but in a different universe, this store was full
of young, old, happy, sad, thin, fat, smart, dumb, contemplative, head-
scratching, blabbing, silent, upright-walking, knuckle-dragging beings
that, if you could have dumped them all in a boiling hot cauldron and
cooked them, would have made up a human stew worthy of a Michelin star,
a stew that would turn the staunchest vegetarian into a cannibal eager
to lick the spoon.

And, they have a Starbucks!

It was wonderful! My journey to the center of the vortex of the human
race was complete. Satiating. Somewhat disorienting.

But, I had serious work to do. I needed to finish my shopping and get
home to The Man because I live in fear that some day he's going to come
out of his poetry-writing revelry, look up and realize that the crazy
woman who usually runs around yelling about stuff is gone and get it
into his head to go out looking for her and fall in the pond and get
eaten by Frank the bluegill.

But, then I experienced a miracle! I was driving home and it was now
just after dusk. I drove past brittle corn fields, the corn dry in the
husks. I passed a farmhouse complex with two barns and two silos, plus
other smaller outbuildings all whitewashed. Each of the tallest structures,
house, barns and silos, had small windows set right at the top near the
peak of the roof. In each of these high windows the farmer had placed a
lighted pumpkin (plastic, I assume) on the window ledge. As I gazed over,
my eyes were met with such a beautiful sight. The buildings were glowing
softly in the aftermath of the sunset and were just visible against a
darkened sky. The muted, orange balls of light from the pumpkins shown
like eerie beacons above a sea of dead corn.

It was the best autumnal effect I've seen in a long time, very subtle and
alluring and it single-handedly made me like it here in The Land of O and
think that maybe there is hope for America.

And, if you know me at all, you know that me thinking these kind of thoughts
is tantamount to a miracle.

I drove home and, happily, The Man was not yet out of his revelry and hadn't
been eaten by Frank, which, in my book, makes for a perfect day.