Grocery shopping

I have to change the way I shop for groceries. This will be made easier by some other domestic changes we made recently, here in our shared house. Because the Badger is now home full-time, the rhythms and requirements of our home life changed too.

You might remember my little room and the wardrobe the Badger made me? Well, this is what it looks like now. He and I have it for our own little kitchen.

We share his attic for our living accommodation.

To the right of the guitar, the Badger is going to build a place for my clothes to hang (his hang under the eaves). At the moment they are hanging on pot hooks screwed into the wall in the place where we sleep (you can see through the doorway). 

I can only show half where we sleep because the space is very little. We sleep on the floor; the space is bed-sized.

Black thing with pointy ears in foreground is our cat Miguel sleeping, not my discarded PJs.

So, though we still source many household commodities in common with the other people in the house – and are comfortable with lots of cheerful sharing – the Badger and I now source some food for just the two of us.

That has made it easier (in principle) to source his and my food from the small shops, as we no longer need to shop at places where there’s a big choice. All of us still go to the wholefood co-op, of course, but otherwise we mainly go to one of three big grocery chains, where there are special offers etc.

However, I’d just got used to shopping where I always shop, so I didn’t do anything different when things changed at home. I didn't make a new habit of going to the small shops

Then this happened:

I was in a big grocery chain outlet, queuing up at the checkout to pay for my food selection on Good Friday. Behind me was a small old lady in a headscarf, shuffling and dithering and turning round in small circles muttering to the woman behind her. At first I didn’t pay too much attention because I assumed maybe she just had a neurological condition. I assumed she was with the woman she was talking to. Then I tuned in to what she was saying – that she couldn’t remember the PIN for her bank card to pay for her goods.

As I paid closer attention, I realized what had happened. She’d gone through once, got the PIN wrong, and the cashier let her come back for another try. The cashier also let her keep with her the goods all packed up in her shopping bag, and I was glad to see that trust and kindness.

As she had the bag all ready, I suggested she go in front of me, since I had many items to check out. She was grateful to do that, the cashier got the ticket ready, and the shopper tried again. She got the PIN wrong again. Her face all pale and distorted with worry, she kept saying ‘What am I going to do? I’ll have to put it all back.’

The public holiday weekend was ahead of us, she had guests coming, the banks were shut for Good Friday – so, no way to access cash without her PIN.

The cashier was very kind and gentle, soothing – sent her to sit down quietly on a seat nearby to try to remember. As I checked out my own shopping, the cashier had a bright idea – their instore ATM offers a ‘change PIN’ facility. No. Not without first entering the PIN you already have.

That particular story ended happily and the old lady was okay (I knew you’d need to know this to concentrate on anything else). It got sorted out.

But it made me think.

One of the things I love about weddings is the sense of convergence as people prepare (bear with me, this is not the complete change of topic it seems to be). Guests coming from overseas, the bride getting ready at home, the groom at his home. The minister, the organist, the bridesmaids, the chapel steward – everybody setting off each according to their appropriate timing, all to be there in the same place at the right moment.

I realized something similar had happened about that old lady’s grocery shopping.

First stores got bigger and chain stores emerged. So, smaller family grocers went out of business - like the cheese shop and the greengrocers in Hastings Old Town. In the new big chain stores, unlike the old family stores, you couldn’t get goods on tick, and the staff neither knew you nor had the power to let you go home with goods not paid for, on a promise to come back on Tuesday with the money once the banks had opened and you’d had chance to resolve the problem.

Then the banks became more centralized, and more dependent on codes, plastic cards, online services and PINs. Most local high street branches disappeared; for old people who were not internet savvy . . . er . . . tough.

Then cheques were no longer accepted for payments.

Then signing a till receipt and matching it against your bank card signature was stopped. Now, you had to remember the PIN.

In the new banks and chain stores, rules and procedures determined centrally applied. Nobody was empowered to let you go home and pay later.

[A similar thing happened in the libraries – when my previous (deceased) husband Bernard went to join Rye library, the staff member at the counter said he must provide ID. He stared at her in bewilderment. ‘ID?’ he said. ‘But . . . Ida, you went to school with me!’

‘Even so,’ she said, ‘I have to see evidence of your identity.’]

And it occurred to me, all these small, incremental moves towards centralization and aggrandization had culminated, like guests converging on a wedding, in this one moment ~ a little, pale, worried, anxious, disempowered old lady whose memory was going, reduced to shuffling and muttering in shame and terror, with no way to get her hospitality food for the weekend.

And I say, it stinks.

Convenient? Accessible? Efficient? Economical? Smooth to run? Yes – until you are the old lady.

Today, I checked out the times of the next Hastings Farmers Market. Mind you – to be fair – they wouldn’t let you take your loot on tick at the Farmer’s Market either. And neighbourhood communities are now so dispersed and fragmented and anonymous, they wouldn’t know you from Adam anyway. And the Farmers Market people aren't especially kind - probably not even as kind as the cashier in the chain store. But at least you’d know in advance you needed to take cash with you, and at least they’d have the power to sort the problem out if they wanted to.

Some of my shopping - like the meat, the really excellent sauerkraut and the equally excellent goats' milk kefir I get - I can source only online; and that suits me. I'm not an old lady who can't manage a computer, I know my PIN, and I am intensely introverted so handling the camaraderie of old-style shopping makes me nervous and tired. But I still think I'll be sorry if I just let the world be absorbed by machines and conglomerates.