On grocery stores

I don’t have anything against the mall. The shiny floor tiles and brightly-lit mannequins behind glass windows are cheery and pretty to look at, but perhaps the overload of sparkles and lights leaves me sleepy and tired as soon as I walk past the food court. Free chicken teriyaki samples definitely perk me up, but after that, I can neither hold my yawn nor my drooping eyelids. I still want to see the new Samsung Galaxy Note on display at the BestBuy corner, but I can’t be bothered to make the eight steps detour. I drag my feet after my mom as she strolls through the aisles of Macy’s looking for “On Sale” signs. Then I dutifully try on the nine shirts she shoved into my arms, only to walk out with the cheapest one I already knew I’d buy. My brother would be bored out of his mind around this point, so we’d get him some pretzels to keep his looming tantrum at bay. We’d spend a solid half an hour on a bench waiting for him to eat before deciding we are all too tired to keep shopping and go home.
Needless to say, my family doesn’t see the insides of the mall that often, but I don’t mind. I much prefer grocery stores: Walmart, Meijer’s, Sam’s Club, Aldi’s--and the latest addition to my list of favorites--Harvest Market. I get anything I can at Sam’s in bulk. The plastic boxes of baby spinach leaves is one of the few vegetables my brother would touch. Meijer’s is for fruits, vegetables, chicken, and frozen foods. I get everything else from Walmart. Aldi’s comes to the rescue when I only have a twenty and change to cover food for the week. I did run into Ray once at the checkout aisle. We nodded in polite recognition and proceeded to avoid eye contact for the next ten minutes. I guess we do share our appreciation for the fifty cents dozen eggs and the off-brand cream cheese that is half the price of Philadelphia’s. I will admit that Harvest Market is like the Apple of grocery stores on my list. It’s convenient (being only a few blocks from my house), clean, and everything is a little more expensive. Still, I enjoy walking through the tidy aisles and scoffing at the price markup.
I must say, my mood in a grocery store is completely opposite of my state of mind in the mall. It must be the rows upon rows of delicious food staring back at me from their seats on the shelves. It’s strangely relaxing to stroll through the aisles, looking at the food and imagine their taste on my tongue. The imaginary frozen fries still tastes good even when I’ve had it for dinner for the past three days. Crinkle cut is always superior, but Walmart’s choice of potatoes in their Great Value brand might be why I prefer them. The flesh isn’t powery or dry, but a beautiful mix of buttery, soft, the slightest bit of gooeyness and a touch of sweetness. Objectively better than any fries I’ve ever had--McDonald’s cheat by putting beef flavor in their fries, but I’m not complaining. My brother agrees with me wholeheartedly on this. A food preference consensus in my family is a noteworthy event. Potatoes are a staple for busy evenings when I just don’t have enough time between school and extracurriculars to make a dinner my brother would actually eat. He’s so picky with his food that I usually have to make a few different types of food to make sure he’d eat something, and by the time I’m done with his four course meal, I don’t have time for my dinner. So I do mean it when I say “You go to sleep at 11pm? That’s, like, my dinner time!”
Thankfully, I have gotten better at 20-minute meals. Or maybe my brother has become more accepting of my cooking, I don’t know. Most likely it’s both. I do know that grocery stores keeps me going.