Final Assignment; Observation

Edward Perry
English 1010
Haley Stokes
1/31/2010

1010 Observation Final Assignment; “A Shopping Trip”

I dread grocery shopping. I get lost If I don't come prepared with a short list to work from. I fall victim to stimulus overkill. It's hard for me to be in a market for more than 20 minutes without rushing the check-out, whether I have all the items I need or not. My wife, on the other hand, has great browsing focus. It is sadistic how much time she can spend sifting through the produce aisle. I do have an appreciation for this kind of patience. It is something I finally pick up and test at a bizarre grocery outlet.

My wife and I recently moved into a new house. We needed to go shopping to stock up our empty kitchen. Because of this, I knew I was in for the long haul. We decide to go down the street to the neighborhood Reams store. The winter pollution cast it's haze on our drive. I feel uneasy when we pull into the parking lot, but not about shopping this time. This store is dingy and glum.

Greeting us at the front of the parking lot is a tall, green, cross shaped sign. A black digital screen rests like a dirty crown atop this monolith with beady, red, words flashing daily specials. Shambling atop the sign is a large consortium of dour pigeons. A feculent white crust stains their perch. On the side of the sign is the faded silhouette of a kilted Scotsman. It is evident that no one has cared to repaint this mascot within the last few decades. By the looks of this place, I doubt there's anyone in charge of upkeep here at all.

Between parking stalls, there are dirty black snow drifts with aluminum cans protruding like fossilized bones. Litter is strewn across the blacktop lot. Behind the cinder block wall to the south, dead winter trees pose with old plastic shopping bags hanging from their veinous branches. They move like sick lungs in the gray smog.

I dare myself forward as we approach the store. Wood framed, hand painted ads stretch along the yellowed brick exterior. They are protected by chicken wire. What are they being protected from? Certainly not the elements! On a country store the mesh covering might be a quaint aesthetic touch. Here, it looks like ghetto resignation.

We pass through the front doors. The produce aisle is to the immediate right, and is separate from the rest of the store. You have to pass through it to get to the main shopping area. This makes me feel like I'm being corralled in with all of the other shoppers.

To stay positive, I try my best to help my wife bag vegetables and fruit so we can move on as fast as possible. I learn how to choose a good pineapple. They should be golden yellow, and less firm towards the base. The leaves atop are not a good indicator of freshness, since pineapples don't grow fresh anywhere near here at this time of year. Maybe my attention span can live through what is likely to be an hour long ordeal if I observe, and learn more about the product selection. For that, I'll need to be able to withstand the droves of people crowding the narrow aisles.

The store is lost in another time, with its acoustic ceiling tiles and buzzing fluorescent lights. No one in this store seems happy at all. I smile at people as I pass their aisle obstructing carts, only to get crusty looks and mean glares in return. They are making up for all the smiles and stylishness of organic food stores and metro-marts that I'm accustom to. These grouchy shoppers are doing their part to balance the grocery universe. They must hate shopping as much as I do.

The more I maintain my focus, the more I see the strange array of food items from which to choose. I start with pickled pigs' feet. I see these, and know they are not uncommon. But, I observe them up close. They float gracefully in shatter-proof jars with clean white lids. The soft pink skin segments wrap around bone and hooves. They levitate in red spices. Its like a satanic snow globe made by Charles Manson. I pull one of these jars from the shelf and show it to my wife. She turns away and gets dizzy for a moment.

“That made me feel nauseous!”, she says in disgust. I don't doubt it. She's a vegan, and looks sea sick for a moment. I feel bad. Reams is now an unsteady ship.

“Sorry.” I say. “I just wanted you to see this. Its so strange.” I wasn't about to show her the seasoned pork rinds in brine now. They looked like carved strips of bleached rubber, but she'll never see them, as she goes off to find cake mix. I continue looking for entertaining food packaging.

Next I find cans that claim in bold print to contain a "whole chicken", in broth, without giblets. A whole chicken! The cans seems smallish. They must be a small chickens. Still, I doubt the claim. How can a chicken be whole without its giblets!

Now I'm so keen on observing this place and its contents, that I want to take notes. I find my wife, who is kind enough to lend me her address book and pen.

Down the aisle I find 'California Girl Sardines', which feature a bikini clad female on a surf board left of the food title. To the right is a fish which is holding an enormous tomato slice curled tightly in its tail. Students jokingly made logos like this in my old high school commercial art class. At least I thought they were joking.

I then come across “Danish Wedding Cookies” by Keebler. These are not odd, but their title clues me in to why I've only seen these hard, white, powdered cookies at weddings. Their primary purpose must be for decoration. They are made to compliment wedding dresses and white tablecloths. The box is pink with an image of the cookies on front, but the Keebler elf is nowhere to be found on the package. Does he not endorse these? He's on all of the other Keebler cookie items!

On aisle 14 there is a sign that advertises “refridgerated dough”. Yeah, that's a typo on an aisle sign. That could've been anybody's mistake. Its a character trait of the store. I now feel fine being here, taking my notes. Living in the bad side of town, I'll have to get used to it. The only problem now, is that other people are watching me take my notes, especially near the meat counter. As I catalog strange animal body parts at the deli, people start to rubber neck. Some people are giving me disturbed looks. I was not trying to take sneaky notes, but I wasn't flaunting a quill pen either. My observations are now not natural in the flow of groceryland.

When you observe, you change what you are observing.

I try to hurry my scribblings as green smocked employees and leery shoppers eye me. It's time to go. My wife has been eager to leave for a while now. I got all of the information I didn't know I was coming for. I even came up with scenarios for certain observations. For example, I figured that a person, if they wanted to, could make a very grotesque monster from the hermetically sealed variety of meats. Hey, all the parts are there! From the cookie aisle, who knows? I didn't check into it enough.

My wife and I met outside of the store. It's ironic that she was not amused by how much time I kept us there. The gray sky was dimming fast. Several feral cats played in the trees outside. Now the trees seemed endearing. The old hung shopping bags still breathed in and out as we drove away. Maybe next time I come here, I'll hang up one of my own.