The parking lot game

Hubby and I went to New Hampshire for the weekend and needed to go grocery shopping. We decided to try the new Market Basket because our favorite grocery store, Dave’s Marketplace, has not reached that far north yet.  I had heard positive things about Market Basket from others and thought we should see what all the fuss was about.

The parking lot was as humongous as the one serving the Super Walmart.  Hubby had to drive around to find an open spot, and we ended up waiting, blinker on, for a car to pull out in order to pull into their spot.  Of course, as is customary, the car of choice was driven by someone who was in no particular hurry, and oblivious to the small line of cars forming behind us. After chatting a while on her cell phone, which increased Hubby’s ire, she ever so slowly backed out, leaving the clearing for us.

It was quite a walk to the front door, and even though I wore the obligatory facemask for COVID, the smell of chocolate and pastries from the café wafted to my olfactory sense as soon as I walked into the store. I was in love…or so I thought at the time.  With a happy, savory spring in my step, the shopping carriage lurched forward towards the prepared foods.  Ooooh!  Spring rolls and crab rangoons and shrimp tempura, all ready and waiting for me to take home to my air fryer.  There were little egg salad and seafood salad and chicken salad sandwiches, only a mouthful for me, but at an irresistible $1.99 price. The bounty of prepared foods lined the aisle, as did the shoppers.  I was soon in a quagmire of shopping carts.  Every time I tried to inch forward, someone would dart in front of me to grab one of the delicacies.  It was a relief when I reached the end of the aisle, only to be met by another horde of people milling around the entrance to the fruit and vegetable section. The flower department, in the middle, became a rotary, where people and their carts would take a turn to cross over.  Even though I was wearing a mask, it was a surety that other shoppers could see my giggling smile by the gleam in in my eyes.

An abundance of fruits and vegetables, artistically displayed in a rainbow of color, invited me to choose healthy items for snacking, delicious apples, plump tomatoes, grapes, oranges, and celery.  Going down this aisle was beneficial for my health as the shopping cart was packed with so many nourishing items that there was nary any space for cookies or other high calorie snacks.

I tried to make a beeline for the meats, but the effort was cut short by another shopping cart jam.  This time, there was no rotary type alternating release, but a jammed together mob of immovable metal.  It reminded me of the game with the little, colorful cars in a parking lot.  The goal is to move them, one by one, to allow the car in the back to drive happily out of the lot. Unfortunately, this game was not played at this store, and aggravated shoppers pushed and shoved their way out.  Being in the rear of the pack, I simply backed up and decided we did not need any meat. Lucky Hubby missed the excitement as he had been happily searching the cracker aisle.

The dairy aisle was super wide and a delightful eyeful. A vast variety of yogurts, milks, juices, and cheeses calmed my nerves down as I leisurely chose additional items for my cart.

Imagine my surprise as I rounded the end of the last aisle expecting to see long lines of people in the checkout lanes. There were none! There were 20 cash registers open, each one with a checker and a bagger. Choosing an empty lane, Hubby and I put the groceries of our choosing onto the belt, and the items were checked and bagged by the time we were finished. The ease of the checkout did not counterbalance the crowd with shopping carts.  Next time we will go shopping early in the morning, or, better yet, suggest Dave’s Marketplace expand into New Hampshire.