Stories from an in-person grocery shopper

thoughts on small-towns, small-talk, and the humble grocery store

Photo by Tara Clark on Unsplash

Last week I was able to get out of the house alone, no baby, no kids tagging along. I needed to get a few groceries at the local store. This isn’t the place to do a big monthly haul but I still walk out of my weekly stop with six giants bags of groceries. We don’t eat many pre-packaged snacks at our house; our main snacks are fruits and veggies (bananas, apples, blueberries, carrots, cucumber, radishes) and they must be restocked often.

The checker, lets call her Jill, lit up when she saw me approaching the checkout. I knew what she was thinking. I hadn’t been in there in a few weeks and the last time she had seen me, my belly was the size of a watermelon.

“You had your baby!” She exclaimed.

“Yes I did!”

“What’d you have?! Boy, girl?”

“I had a little boy!” I answered, happy to share the news.

We talked a bit more as she rang up my groceries and she told me congratulations before I walked out.

When I was nearing the end of pregnancy, sometimes coming in the store with one or two kids along, I got questions like “is this your third?”, “how many kids to you have?”, or looking at my 5-year-old, “is he your youngest?” As funny as this is to me, I do try not to laugh at questions like that. I’m not yet 30 years old, so why would anyone guess that I’d have 6 (and now seven) kids back home? And when I’d answer that no, I’m actually expecting my seventh, the next questions would always be “do you homeschool?” or “do you stay stay at home with them?”

Does it seem nosy of the grocery store employees to ask those questions? Maybe, but I like to think of it as caring. If the small-town folks aren’t asking you about your life, that would be far more concerning. I’m new to this particular small-town community but I grew up in a town with a population of 500; nosy questioning is the locals’ way of beginning to accept you. People will talk. It’s preferable that they’re talking to you and not just about you behind your back. By the end of my pregnancy, the grocery store ladies knew when I was due with my seventh, how many boys and girls I have, and they had told me how many kids they have— which is why it was so fun to walk over to Jill the other day and show her that my preggo belly was gone.

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I’ll admit, when we first moved here close to two years ago, the little grocery store conversations made me uneasy. I was still getting over some post-COVID social anxiety. I had mastered getting in and out of stores as quickly as possible (if I would go in them at all) and with as little eye contact as I get away with. Quickly I realized that I could continue being anonymous in my community, or I could engage. I could chat with the checker about whether to put goats on our new acreage. In fact, we did have this conversation, on one of my first trips to the store. Her verdict was no, unless we wanted to deal with goats escaping and climbing all over our vehicles.

Many of my friends and family, especially those with small children, choose to do grocery pick-up as much as possible. If there is a drive-thru coffee, drive-thru lunch, curbside library book pick-up, they do it. They swear by this as a time and sanity-saving way of life. I can’t disagree that it’s great to have these things as an option. I’ve wondered if I could save time and the hassle of moving kids in and out of carts and car seats if I did more of that.

However, I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t help but wonder what is lost by all our systems of convenience.

I shopped at Wal-Mart a few weeks ago and if you know us, you know that’s a rare occurrence. It was a few days before our baby was born. My husband and I have chosen not to shop there for various reasons, but here’s what I told him that day: “I could buy these things on Amazon, eBay, or drive further and go to Target (a store he might dislike more than Wal-Mart). At least I’ll be shopping in a physical store!” He agreed that I made a pretty good point. He even waited in the van with the kids while I shopped at 9 p.m. on a Sunday night. Nesting was in full swing; I needed more baby and postpartum supplies before I could feel fully ready for labor to start. I was able to find most of what I needed plus a few important items that weren’t on my list (like more hair things for my curly-girls).

When I finished, I waited in line so that a real person could ring up my items, because if you haven’t guessed by now, I’m not fond of robots. (I almost cried the day that my beloved Aldi put in self-check-out lines.) I made small-talk with the checker who was a friendly teenage girl, possibly saving her from the customer ahead of me who was talking on and on, giving her a strange sort of theology lesson. She looked quite relieved when the older man finally walked away.

I was on my way out of the store when I stopped suddenly—I recognized one of the employees. “Bre?” It was my old neighbor from 5 years ago! She and her mom lived right next door to us for a few years, yards so close that we could have full conversations without leaving our front steps. We chatted for a minute; I asked her about her mom and told her to say “hi” for me, before walking back to my van full of tired kids. All but one child was asleep when I returned, and Sterling helped me load my bags.

A couple of years ago I may have avoided eye contact and walked hastily past if I had seen a familiar face. Pretend I don’t see them. Keep going! You might say this is fine for an introvert. But even introverts need human connection from time to time. Even busy moms can take a minute from their day to stop and talk to someone.

Seeing my old neighbor and choosing to engage was a small choice, such a small thing, but I think it matters. Those moments of running into friends in the store and having short interactions with strangers wouldn’t happen nearly as often if I ordered everything online and treated buying food as strictly a hurried errand. Seeing Jill and talking about the baby, talking to Bre about life in the old neighborhood, those might be the moments that change someone’s day.

I want to hear from you:

What do you think about the rise of curbside pick-up since the pandemic?

How has grocery pick-up/delivery helped or hindered you?

Have you recently had any good conversations at the grocery store?