Today I am thankful for the lady singing in the produce section.

11.25.2020

---

I went to the grocery store late this afternoon. I needed a few ingredients for a recipe I’m making, but mostly I needed to restock my fridge with fresh produce. I have been loving fresh fruits and vegetables lately, and I was literally down to my last few grapes.

I ripped one of the clear plastic produce bags off of the roll with the intent of filling it up with apples. Now I know that among all of the problems and challenges posed to humankind in the year 2020, this is probably the smallest, most petty problem of them all. But, when you’re grocery shopping with a mask on and your hands are extremely dry due to all the hand sanitizer and hand washing you do, it’s nearly impossible to open those damn plastic produce bags. It was ridiculous how long it took me to open that stupid thing. In pre-COVID days I might have solved this problem by licking one of my fingers before trying to open it. Now, I can’t believe I ever even thought about licking my fingers in a grocery store. Pre-COVID I might have blown on/into the bag. I sure the heck wasn’t going to do that now. You guys, I tried all the things all while standing there, blocking traffic in front of the sale-priced Honeycrisps. I rubbed the bag between my hands. I tried to pick at the bag’s opening with my fingernail. I rubbed the bag against my shirt. I did finally get it, but if anyone had been watching me they probably thought I was crazily incompetent. I got the apples, but then quickly realized that I was going to need another bag for the green beans and one for the bell peppers. I was actually going to need a whole bunch of them as nearly my entire list consisted of unpackaged produce. I struggled with bag after bag and got increasingly annoyed that my easy grocery shopping trip was turning out to be quite challenging. I finally discovered that if I picked up a vegetable after it had been misted that it would leave my fingers damp enough to easily open the bags. Phew! I kind of feel like they need to post little signs near the rolls of bags with that tip, because I surely can’t be the only one struggling with this.

Still slightly annoyed, but thankful for my discovery, I reached for a cucumber. And then it happened. The grocery store catastrophe that up until this point I’d avoided in all my years of grocery shopping. That horrific scene that you see on sitcoms and in movies, but wonder if it actually happens in real life. The great produce tumble. Yeah, it happens in real life. I grabbed the largest cucumber and immediately regretted my choice. The entire stack of cucumbers began to roll. My first reaction was to lean into the disaster. I awkwardly threw my body on the falling cukes. I saved a few that way. They still rolled everywhere, though. Thankfully most of them ended up landing on top of the bags of baby carrots that were housed in the cooler below. After settling the cucumbers that I trapped with my body back into their now nearly empty shelf, I assessed the damage and bent down to retrieve the escaped cucumbers on the floor. A grocery store employee who was restocking the sweet potatoes ran over to assist. I apologized and sheepishly handed him the floor cucumbers. He was super kind about it. He told me it happened all the time. I’m not so sure about that, but I was thankful that he came to my rescue and cleaned up my mess.

So now here I am, annoyed about the whole plastic bag thing and embarrassed about the cucumber debacle, but still needing to get a few items left on my list. I wheeled my cart over to the bananas and joined a woman who was carefully selecting the perfect bunch. I hadn’t noticed until this moment, but there were Christmas carols playing in the background over the store’s PA system. The banana lady was signing along. People don’t sing along to Christmas carols in the grocery store unless they’re in a good mood, and this woman’s joyful demeanor snapped me out of my sour mood. I suddenly saw the events of the last 10 minutes as hilarious rather than frustrating. I mean, I repeatedly rubbed plastic bags against my chest to no avail and then threw my body up against falling cucumbers. That’s funny. I smiled at the banana lady. I’m not sure she could tell since I had my mask on, but I’m going to pretend that she saw my smile through my eyes.

I literally thought in that moment, thank goodness for the singing banana lady. That’s how we should all grocery shop. Then I decided that I wanted to be that lady. And so I was. I fa-la-la-la-la-ed my way through the rest of my list and rum-pum-pum-pummed all the way home.

I love that one lady in one moment, turned my mood around. I guess sometimes we all need a banana lady. I pray that I can be one more often than I need one.