What the Grocer Saw

I walked into a grocery store yesterday afternoon to buy one of the little potted plants they had on sale next to the garden swings and lawn fertilizer. I was standing in line behind a man buying pitted olives and avocados, who was immediately preceded by a rather frazzled looking woman. I should mention that this is not my regular grocery store –I happened to pop into this one after a doctor’s appointment I just had in the area. This particular store is in a fairly affluent neighborhood, reminiscent of the 50’s era, where husbands leave for work by 7 a.m. and return by 6, to freshly-scrubbed children and a hot dinner on the table. The woman in line was also buying plants, hanging basket ones, as well as several food items. She was shopping alone, but the few extra pounds she was carrying hinted at a recent birth, and the wedding ring firmly stuck on her left hand confirmed her status for anyone who happened to be standing in her proximity with access to sunlight.

As the cashier rang up and bagged her items, the woman grabbed up the hanging plants and put them in her shopping cart and started to walk away. The man immediately in front of me in line called out to tell her she forgot all the bags with the food in them. She turned around, reached for the bags, and replied to the man, ‘oh, wow. My husband would have been sooo mad.’

Her reaction left me feeling dejected. Since when do women view themselves, their successes, their failures, their wins, losses, trip-ups and forgotten groceries, in terms of the inevitable male response? Or maybe the right question is, did they, did we, ever stop?

I walked out of the store with my plant. Just as my left foot hit the pavement on the other side of the electric door, I heard a ‘excuse me, miss.’ I turned around to face a smiling older gentleman, who was holding a twenty-dollar bill that had escaped my wallet and fluttered to the ground. ‘You dropped this,’ he said, extending his wrinkled, veined hand. As I reached for it and smiled my thank you, I tucked the bill back into my purse and thought to myself how strange it must be to be in a position where the loss of twenty dollars would immediately turn into a fear of male repercussion. And how liberating it is to know that the only person to be angry or frustrated with my mistakes and oversights, is me.