SLOW SHOPPERS

April 24, 2020, Friday. 

I rounded the corner then stopped short. I was headed for the cheese display but a young man was standing there, phone in hand. So I maintained social distance and waited until he'd made his selection. He looked at his phone, then looked at the cheese, then looked at his phone, then looked at the cheese. I finally back-tracked and entered a near-by aisle, while keeping my eye on the cheese. The young man finally moved away from the chesse and I headed toward it. Too late. The young man was back again, looking at his phone, then looking at the cheese.

My shopping list was long, but I know the store, and it shouldn't have taken more than 20 minutes or so to fill my cart and check out. I'd already waited in line outside the store for ten or fifteen minutes before I was allowed to enter although I was only fourth in line when I’d first arrived. Once inside the store my aim was to whisk though and out. But there seemed to be an unusual number of inexperienced shoppers, or maybe they were unfamiliar with this particular store.

There was the man who left his cart in the middle of the produce department and kept running back and forth with the fruits and vegetables he'd picked out. One woman waylaid a clerk in the middle of an intersection and went through her entire shopping list, asking where each item could be found. Then there was the woman who was picking up individual packages and apparently reading the lables very carefully. She'd put produce bags over her hands for this procedure; pick up one package, examine it, put it back; pick up another package of the same product, examine it, put it back.

This particular store has made all their aisles one-way. There are arrows taped to the floor at the ends of each aisle. So if you want something half-way down the aisle, and there's someone a quarter of the way down who can't decide what they want, it's not possible to roll past them and maintain social distance, especially if they've stopped their cart in the center of the aisle. Maybe they do that on purpose to prevent other more efficient shoppers from passing them. In a couple of cases, I passed them (rapidly) anyway.

I suspect some of these inexperienced shoppers were husbands, shopping for wives who were home with children, or who felt they wanted to protect their wives from contageon. But I also wondered if some shoppers were out to enjoy every possible minute of their time away from the house.

There was no one in the check-out line, so that part of the process went rapidly. And I can't say enough about the staff who have been unfailingly polite, helpful, and even cheerful.