Category: Experience

I was in the local grocery store yesterday to buy four cans of pumpkin puree to make our holiday pumpkin bread. A purchase in this particular store is rare, since prices are tremendously inflated in our small rural town. We often go to the next city over to buy a full week’s worth of groceries, but if I only need an item or two, I’ll justify the cost of the items using the cost of gas and time. 

The gas is a sure’nuff savings, but the time is questionable when you don’t know the layout of the store. With an item like pumpkin, it might be on the holiday baking display, the canned fruit, or the baking aisle. In this tiny store where two carts barely fit side by side on any aisle, I’d scoured the shelves, finally stopping for a breath on the pasta aisle, where I remembered we needed macaroni and cheese for Christmas Eve to go with our ham. 

As I reached for the dark blue Kraft Deluxe box I usually buy, I saw the price and it might as well have been a snake striking. There was no way I was paying $5.89 for a box of macaroni and cheese. No way my mama’s memory would let me even think about it. I studied every other brand, including the store brand, and it was the same. Too much. We’d do without. 

About that time, a man wearing denim overalls, work boots, and a flannel shirt ambled up with his hand basket up to his elbow, about to purchase the same box I’d wanted. He retracted his hand like that box was a hot potato when he saw the price. He did a double-take.

“It’s a sad day when a man can’t afford no macaroni and cheese, ain’t it?” 

“Yes, sir,” I confirmed. ”I’m going to be mac-and-cheeseless, too,” I assured him, nodding toward my empty cart that I didn’t really need – – a hand basket like his would have sufficed.  

He sucked his teeth and pursed his lips. ”Well, I ain’t buyin’ none,” he muttered, walking on.

I finally had to ask directions to the pumpkin aisle. The first worker, a young teenager stocking bread, had no idea what I needed. ”Wait, it’s pumpkin in a can??”

“Yes, that’s right. It’s pureed pumpkin. Any brand will do. I usually buy Libby’s.” I could tell he was hung on both the word pureed and the idea of pumpkin in a can. It seemed to be blowing his mind, this pureed pumpkin in a can. My mind trailed back to my deep discussions with our Curriculum Coordinator about the need for more emphasis on vocabulary instruction in our schools earlier in the week. 

He said he’d have to ask, and off he went – never to return.

I ventured back to the main aisle, looking for a different worker down each aisle the same way wives look for lost husbands, finally finding an older teenage female sitting on the floor stocking cans. She paused. ”Aisle 2,” she said. ”I had to think about that one for a minute,” she confessed. “Look right past the fruit cups on the left at the top.”

Sure enough, on a top shelf, there was the Libby’s I’d missed the first time I’d looked, sitting back at an angle. I reached up, pulled 4 cans forward, and headed to the register to check out.

Two checkers were slammed, so a third opened Register 5. An older gentleman wearing jeans with a huge belt buckle, a pair of shiny cowboy boots, a button down shirt, and a thin jacket stepped over to place my bag in the cart. I wasn’t sure whether he even worked there or not, but as I was wondering, he read my pumpkin label and removed all doubt.

“Ah, Libby’s,” he read, prompting a knowing smile. ”Back in the early days, we had the best price on Libby’s vegetables. 59 cents for a 16-ounce can. Folks came three to a mule for Libby’s vegetables.” His eyes had that reflective sparkle that the older generation gets whenever the memories of simpler times come rushing back. 

And then I made a mistake I regretted when I got to the car. I nodded, smiled, took my bag, and said, “Thank you, sir,” and exited the store. I should have asked about those days. I should have asked about those vegetables. I should have asked for a story that now I’ll never hear.

I learned some things yesterday, because I missed at least two opportunities with the macaroni and cheese man and the Libby’s man to learn some history. 1) Next time, I’ll find the oldest person to ask about where to find things. 2) I’ll take time to talk a little more to those who initiate conversation. 3) I’ll initiate more conversations myself – – because there are so many stories that folks need to tell, and that I need to write.

And I feel their empty space.