September 23, 2007 | Mama Smith

publix

There’s a grocery store here in the south known as Publix. In particular, a new one here in downtown that opened just a few weeks ago. Publix. Sounds generic enough and harmless, right?

Ha. It has completely caught me off guard and left me wondering just what else the south has up it’s sleeve. Upon my initial visit, the culture shock of it all left me wondering what just happened in there. Did they slip something into the cake they handed Brighton and I as we walked through the doors?

Before even stepping foot through the second sliding door, we had already been greeted four times. Four of the forty we would have racked up by the end of the visit. I’m still getting over big city paranoia. That any stranger who looks you in the eye and talks to you as if you’re an actual person…really just wants to steal your child. Therefore I had an eery feeling I was being watch. Every new aisle we turned on to, someone seemed to pop out of no where – from behind the watermelon bin, from out of the freezer, from under the stack of Charmin Ultra. All to wish us a pleasant visit. Ask us if there was anything they could do for us, help us find, run to China and purchase off the black market for us.

The floors are glistening. The aisles are beautifully and thoughtfully laid out. Even the Publix brand logo is a hip, clean design.

As I head to the checkout lane, I am greeted by a line of cashiers waiting to claim my cart. One pulls us to her aisle and begins unloading my things. I uncomfortably push her out of the way wondering why she feels the need to rummage through my personal items. Another effect of big city paranoia. She pushes me back out of the way and continues unloading as woman #2 rings me up and woman#3 fills up bags. I stand there awkwardly trying to find something to do with myself. They all three ask me about my boys, about being a mom, about the items we purchased. They want to talk to me?! Woman #1 and #2 bid me farewell as woman #3 takes off with my cart. I chase after her, wondering what in the world she’s doing, and practically wrestle the cart out of her grip. She grabs it back and says “This is all apart of the great customer service Publix has to offer” with a glowing smile, and walks off. I stand there blinking with my jaw dropped to the floor.

She takes us to our car, unloads my groceries, helps me buckle in Brighton, shuts our doors and says goodbye.

Just for comparison sake, here is how the typical chain grocery store near our house shopping experience went in Philly on the rare occasion we needed something the co-op didn’t have.

Levi goes into the Bjorn. Brighton and I select the least rusty, least trash-filled cart for him to sit in. We walk through disorganized, cluttered aisles as the blaring radio channel coughs out the best of the early 90’s. We wait in line anywhere from 15-45 minutes. We are tired and cranky by the time we make it to the conveyor belt. I say hi to the clerk. She is talking over my head to the cashier next to us about the party they went to the other night or promptly leaves to hang out with the bag boy one lane over while I unload my groceries. Only to return and ring up my groceries with such voracity, I literally have to dodge the hurling head of lettuce and canned beans as they fly towards me at the end of the aisle. Yes, at me because the bag boy has gone AWOL, leaving me to frantically pack groceries with Levi strapped to my chest and at the same time wrangle candy and other items away from Brighton seated in the cart. When the clerk is done ringing me up, glaring at the mound of items I have failed to pack up still, she tells me my total and I hurry to swipe my card. She then proceeds to ring up the next person as I scrabble to get our remaining goods and head out the door.

You can see why I thought I’d mistakingly stepped in to a grocery-store themed Disneyland on my maiden voyage to Publix.

I have been missing the co-op, missing our rounds, missing familiar faces. Wondering when Greenville will begin to feel like home. The other day at Publix, I had two of those same cashiers who’d initially helped me. They greeted Brighton by name, asked where Levi was, how he was enjoying his sweet potatoes. Asked how we were adjusting to the south, how our house was coming. At that moment, I saw my favorite co-op cashier in the face of this woman with a southern drawl, flirting with Brighton and handing him a balloon.

It will take time, but there will be new rounds and new faces that will become our home here.

This afternoon yielded another trip to the local state park. Matthew tried to teach B how to build a dam. But as with all toddlers, he was more interesting in destroying it.