Voices: Developing Consciousness
Until helping a friend shop for a party last week, I had never been to a Wegmans grocery store. Not inside, not even in the parking lot. And it was no accident.
Descriptions of the store's bountiful and eclectic inventory had intimidated me. I knew the temptation would be too great, leading me swiftly down the path to a bank account busting grocery bill.
I had already conducted several unscientific comparison studies - each time I strayed from the more humble offerings of my family-owned neighborhood grocery store, I splurged. How could I possibly resist? As my mom used to say, I had "champagne taste on a beer budget." Which is all well and good until someone waves a bottle of Dom Perignon in front of your face.
My watering mouth proved my theory right within less than one lap around Wegmans. Thank the gods I wasn't doing the shopping. And it wasn't just me I was concerned about. There was no way I could take my six-year-old daughter past that candy section without her head spinning round and very possibly exploding.
The pate and fresh herbs and huge health food health section and how many different kinds of cheeses? And then the international sections and the sushi-to-go and aisle after aisle of fun calorie exploration waiting to happen. It was every bit as overwhelming as I knew it would be. It was everything people in developing (formerly third world) countries thought of when they pictured "America." It was exactly why some of those people hated us.
"But it's not because of our access to such a staggering display of choices that they hate us," I thought as we pushed out cart up to the check out belt. It was because we took this wealth for granted and because we looked upon it with such blind entitlement. I was sure of it. And then I watched my friend explain as she handed the environmentally friendly reusable cloth bags she had brought with her to the cashier. It wasn't embarrassment she presented herself with, but it was something too close for comfort. I suspect that being an undeniably nice person, she just didn't want to cause any problems for this 17-year-old Wegmans employee.
But the cashier shocked the righteous sorrow right out of me. Turns out the handsome young lad had lived in Sweden with his grandparents for some time. In Sweden, we learned, everyone is required to bring their own bags to the grocery store. The American way of accumulating and disposing of cheap plastic shopping sacks with barely a flicker of consciousness had become a pet peeve of his since returning to the U.S.
And he didn't just let it nag at him as he bagged one customer's order after another either. He actually sat down and wrote a letter to the Wegmans powers that be explaining how things were in Europe and how the store might set an example here in the U.S. and start asking its customers to bring their own bags.
No kidding.
I saved every bag I brought home from the store with intentions of recycling but I hadn't felt enough faith in their strength to take them back to the grocery store with me. Eternally on a budget, I had admired the designed for reuse bags like my friend had brought but never seriously considered actually splurging for a collection. Nope. I took home as many paper bags as I could recycle my newspapers in and stuffed the plastic bags into other plastic bags which I stuffed into a cabinet until it became stuffed so full of plastic bags that I had to take some down into the basement under the recycling pretense of future protective packing cushioning.
The bags were only one symptom of a greater laziness and avoidance of responsibility, I realized. I let the faucet run while I brushed my teeth, poured household chemicals down the drain, and bought disposable batteries instead of recharging. And it had been made all too apparent by a 17-year-old grocery store cashier. It wasn't the lesson I had anticipated learning at Wegmans at all. But that wasn't nearly as important as whether or not I might learn to live by his example.
--alicia grega-pikul, 26 August 2004
Send e-mail to: apikul@timesshamrock.com.
