Soapbox Artist: Molly Norris really loves her local grocery store

Soapbox Artist is a new, monthly online-only column that invites local creative types (who you don't normally hear from in the written medium) to sound off about...whatever they want.

Love letter to a grocery store

by Molly Norris

Dear Albertsons, my store:

You are so much mine that I call you ’Sons. In true codependence I continue buying your produce believing ‘it will taste better this time’ while you continue to enable my après gym duds and hairdos. I shop you nearly every night, so comfortable that I once had a breakdown in your breakfast bar aisle, crying below a side display of Unicorn glitter tattoos. You are not just a store; you’re a home. And I defend you to everyone I know.

What’s not to love? Generic freeze pops grace your freezer floor like belts of root beer ammo. Your managers don’t hide their private-life shiners. Your magazine section carries ten bridal publications with nary a sign of The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker or Harper’s. Your cashiers read Ayn Rand and your cakes are emblazoned with pink breast cancer awareness ribbons. Neil Diamond’s "Cracklin’ Rosie" floods your aisles and I benefit financially from your “Decadent Dozen Mix-and-Match Donut Special!”

Things happen inside of you that would never happen at a Thriftway, Met Market or QFC. I remember the day that hillbilly family was at the store: a mom, dad and four kids. Dark-haired with home-cut bangs, calico fabric outfits and no affect, they walked through you like ghosts. You know that I know my hillbillies, since I once lived in the Ozarks and saw them regularly at the Clinton, Arkansas WalMart. Did we mention that you, my Albertsons, are in a rather affluent neighborhood? Anyway, while the hillbillies shopped I exited the store and what did I see in your lot? An ocean blue Maserati.

The range of what you effortlessly behold convinced me: you are Utopia.

You bolster my self-esteem. The dearth of green folk at your store means that I can feel righteous about remembering my reusable, fabric bags – emblazoned with your logo. I hold these bags out in front as I enter and keep them in view as I shop. “Look at how amazing I am,” the bags say. It’s a victimless crime, since nobody cares!

Albertsons, you are a sensory world and senses are poem loam. For years I had no idea what was emitting a cinnamon smell so intense that I had to hold my breath in order to get to the produce section. If mine were a hero’s journey, this is what would be called a “threshold.” Last week I decided to get to the bottom of it and there, tucked around your Red Delicious, were buckets holding upended cinnamon brooms. How poetic is that? Alan Ginsburg must have felt this way following Walt Whitman around that grocery store.

Sometimes it gets lonely loving you. But I do have the Latin floor-polishing man who works during the hour before closing time. We smile at each other. His polishing machine is so loud that it drowns out Natalie Merchant singing "Jealousy" from three aisles away. The machine is easily overheated so the polishing man must spray the exposed motor every few seconds with water from a plastic spray bottle, while deftly steering with the other hand. I relate; because back when there was a coffee machine in the bakery section, I had to steer my cart and hold my hot cup simultaneously.

I loved your store brand canned goods labels. Once so lovely to behold they were art – illustrations of godly foods placed in ersatz compositions in the spirit of photos by 19th century British gardener Charles Jones. As we speak these labels are being switched out with new designs that are as bleak as a tuna casserole without peas. Why not create packaging for store brands that is even more beautiful than the brand name stuff? Did someone force you to change? They didn’t hurt you, did they?

The progression of 'Sons' label art. Latest at bottom.

Your cashiers are true blue. Trixie with the grape purple eyeglasses told me how to cure canker sores with a sauerkraut poultice. That was sweet of you to let the young cashier who acquired a repetitive motion injury walk your aisles in a shift silk-screened to resemble a French bread sack. And when I laugh and tell your cashiers that I need to “get this cheap wine home to my mother right away,” they never hesitate to share hilarious alcoholic-mother stories of their own!

'Sons, there is something so authentic about you. You don’t fit the mold of other stores. You haven’t been remodeled since the days when I stood outside your north entrance trying to solicit beer. Your customers remind me of my kin – down at the heel with hearts of gold.  You allow me to run fingers through my blue-collar roots smack in the middle of a white-collar ‘hood.

Finally, how can I ever thank you enough for the Bread Lady? Diminutive, with Bob Ross hair, she dresses in white like a nurse from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In the late afternoons she carries trays of French bread from the back regions of the store to the front while harshly crying out, “Fresh bread! Fresh bread!” The other customers act cool, like nothing exceptional is going on. They believe that if one looks into her eyes that they will die. But you and I know that she’s the barker for this carnival.

love,

M.A.N.

Molly Norris is a Seattle-based comic illustrator, filmmaker and creator of literally illustrative art reviews. To learn more about her work, visit her Web site.