[MD] From the Forest to the Free Market

[Case]

I appreciate the way SA so eloquently describes his love of nature. But I
also find that for me, talk of plants not growing where they do by design is
more nostalgic than actual. In my world animals are fenced, leashed or
considered vermin.  

 

But there is a place I go nearly every day were I experience many of the
same emotions SA muses about. It is the grocery store, where I forage for
provisions. There are meats and seafoods, produce from a dozen countries, a
pharmacy, a flower cart, a deli, and a bakery. We have talked about WalMart
many times in this forum but I want to confess that every time I buy
groceries at WalMart I feel like I am cheating my favorite store. Like I
have wandered into a brothel and. you know, a guy's gotta do, what a guy's
gotta do, but that don't make it right.

 

When is shop at my favorite store I usually don't bring home more than I can
carry because smaller loads means a daily trip and that's fine by me. Inside
the store I am a Customer. Capital C, always.  Among the members of the
Customer clan are mothers with infants or toddlers, young couples and the
elderly; people of every line and season. People I have known for years and
people I have never met. People I may have met and people I wish I had never
met. I see people who look like old friends or look like old friends used to
look. I see lots of people who look like famous people and if I see a more
than one of these during a given expedition, I might find myself drawn into
a script involving state secrets hidden inside specially marked bottles of
Coke. Whoever we are and why ever we are here, it is clean, it is spacious
and the bagboys are not allowed to accept tips.

 

One evening I arrived to the shop just before a lightening storm. We get
more lightening where I live than anywhere else in the world. At the far end
of the store there is a sushi chef who doesn't speak English but seems to
regard his work as a meditation. I had wandered into his region when a big
bolt blew out the breakers. The store went black. Customers started opening
their cell phones for light. Fireflies in the darkened aisles. In less than
a minute the power returned and in less than five mins. Customers were
checking out. Lightning hit reset and the entire system: lights, Customers,
employees, everything stopped and rebooted. Outside, beneath a wide and
covered walkway there is good natured grousing and vows to make a run for
the car if this doesn't clear up soon. 

 

Don't get me wrong here SA, I spent a lot of time camping as a boy. I have
climbed Bear Butte and Mount Baldy. I know at least five varieties of edible
wild plants. But in my world there is fantasy on aisle 5, sushi masters have
halos of cell phone light, and the electron lust of cloud for ground can
cause everything to start over with a smile. 

 

Case