Crossing Glenoaks Avenue on Brand Boulevard, I throw a side glance to the line formed outside of Trader Joe’s as I turn right into the parking lot. Doesn’t look too bad, I think to myself. A moment later, Aida speaks aloud that same thought, “The line is much shorter today.”
Car parked, she tightens her scarf around her mouth and nose, and I raise my tube scarf over mine, and we make our way to the end of a row of people, invariably all housing the lower part of their faces under some sort of covering. Most of them have their heads down – as if in solemn prayer, one would think, until you see their palms open in front of them with a smartphone nestled neatly on its surface.
“We’re past Mignon Chocolate,” Aida remarks, referring to the chocolate shop just north of Coffee Bean. “We’ll be inside in five minutes,” she shares with my parents, who have joined us from the opposite side of the globe via Facetime. “Maybe ten,” I speculate. In any case, it’ll be much quicker than last time, when thirty minutes under the early afternoon blazing sun made sure I did not forget it as I checked out my reddened nave in the mirror that evening. Thankfully, today is overcast.
The row of neatly spaced out masked and gloved shoppers progresses faster than expected, judging from the frequency with which we hop from one red marker on the pavement to the next one just six feet ahead of it. We are at the front of the line, waiting to be granted access to a grocery store, when Madame Pompidou herself walks out from behind the building at the other far end. My eyes make out only a silhouette at first, but that much is enough to decipher that we see before us a middle-aged lady with a grand chapeau donning her head. She carries on her left side a large black bag; only after she takes several steps in our direction can I see that the bag is covered with plumes of feathers. She has matched the bag with her boots, made of a velvety cloth rising up and barely reaching her knees. I look away, because in polite society avoiding leaving a rude impression, which is almost always the case if one is found to be staring, it far outweighed than the benefit to be gained by heeding one’s curiosity, even if harmless, non-judgemental, and purely a casual pastime. Naturally, I won’t let her pass us with giving in to observation one last time; knowing that I have an allowance for only one final glance before I am conclusively branded a creep in her mind, I save until she is immediately to my right. That is when I throw a jolt of a glance in her direction and notice her blue gloves and small hands. Looking back straight, I see the worker motioning to us to advance.
“Cart or basket, Aid?” I ask my fiancée about the load of purchase we’re looking into this morning. She advises to go for the cart.
Times of hardship could bring out the worst in people, sure. But my belief is that far more often, hardship brings out the good, the genuinely good in people. And the grocery store experience is a prime example of this. It starts with the line and the unquestioning acquiescence of the shoppers waiting their turn to get essentials. The store manager makes sure to step out every 10 minutes to announce the special hour for senior shoppers and other important information, which everyone in line leans forward to listen – even though they heard the exact same thing 10 minutes ago. One associate cleans the handles of carts and baskets and pushes them to the front of the entrance, while another associate waits patiently with a smile hidden beneath his mask, squirting a generous doze of sanitizer liquid into the extended palms of each visitor. Aida and I grab a cart and start rolling in, only to be greeted by a row of associates standing in front of the produce section, all the same height and each wearing a mask, gloves, and a floral Hawaiian short-sleeve shirt. They all motion to our left, and the first associate announces a favor: “hey guys, can we ask you to start your shopping from the other end of the store and work your way around the back to the produce section?”
I sneak my way to the “bridge” of the store while Aida goes to pick up berries. The bridge is the place at the Glendale Trader Joe’s store where they keep all the good stuff – you know, the stuff that have become more valuable than contraband in the current times. “Do you have paper towels?” I ask, disclosing the main reason why we decided to go grocery shopping in the morning. The response is negative, and the computer tells the associate that they cannot order more paper towels at the moment. My eyes catch a full box of hand sanitizers sitting on the shelf right behind her, and I get a rush of dopamine very much like I would if I were an addict that was in arm’s reach of contraband. “That’s fine… err, can I take two hand sanitizers?”, I follow the ration per family written on the box. Picking up both bottles, I rush to share my excitement with Aida – the same kind of excitement I would exude if I were to find a $10 bill stashed in a coat pocket from the last winter season. Who would have thought…?
Relying on Aida’s super-organized shopping skills, we conclude in ten minutes what would otherwise have taken me over forty. I roll the cart to the line for the counter and notice, with my peripheral vision, Madame Pompidou, standing next to me in the parallel line. Her grande chapeau invites even the most reluctant bystander to converse with her appearance through their eyes. I notice her face covering is actually a white surgical mask, which is overlaid with a layer or two of white gauze extending from the front of the mask against her cheeks and achieving a knot possibly somewhere underneath her hat. An orange reusable bag is sticking out of her black plume bag; a pink clutch is clutched in her right hand. Her composure is a fusion of boredom, exhaustion, confidence, and pride, all at once. Her glance – which I see only half of since she is looking straight – says that she doesn’t care, but also enjoys and expects the attention. The final detail I cannot avoid is the floral print on her white, shiny tights. Concealed behind large black sunglasses, her age remains a mystery, revealed no more than a guess that she is of middle age.
My visual foray is once again cut short by a motioning associate; this time, it’s the clerk at the counter. We make small talk about the joy of eating watermelon with the summer weather just around the corner. We wish each other good health and roll our way out of the store.
It would take one more stop – this time, to Whole Foods – before we conclude our grocery run, but it was clear to me that shopping for fruit and eggs had never before been so deliberate and eventful, and I enjoyed every second of it – for their present experience and for the future memories that we would share.
Chronicles 