Praise be to grocery workers

Lord knows I’ve groused a-plenty here about grocery shopping … how it’s become, shall I say, a lot less of a pick-me-up since the days when the every-other-Tuesday-night trip to Kroger with my folks was one of the precious few outings during my isolated adolescence in a small rural community.

Even without a pandemic going, today’s grocery-store shopping isn’t much less frustrating than attempting to drive in today’s traffic. Either you’re in the way of other shoppers, or other shoppers are in your way. It’s tough to find what you want at a decent price. It’s even worse when you’re on your phone, trying to flip back and forth between the grocery list you put in the Notes app and the phone calculator by which you’re trying to add up the damage. When it comes time to pay, it’s either (a) kill time by reading all the inane magazine headlines as you wait for a live checker; or (b) fumble with the self-checkout machine and grumble back at it as it gives instructions that resemble a preschool teacher talking to one of her charges. Then you get home and realize that, dang, you forgot to get the most important thing you put on the list.

But as I explore the option to become an online pickup/delivery grocery shopper, I must add my kudos and thanks to supermarket workers … one of the groups of can’t-work-from-home-ers who have been highlighted in the midst of all this covid-19 mess.

You’ve always had to deal with the sour faces and funky attitudes of customers who, like myself, find grocery-store shopping to be the bane of their existence. You checkers ask us how we’re doing and we don’t return the question. You baggers are lucky if you get a thank-you (and heaven knows you deserve a tip).

You underage checkers have had to bear the impatience and irritation of geezerly wine and beer buyers when you had to call over an older colleague to approve the purchase. You stockers have had to step over us, seeing more of our bent-over behinds than you’ve cared to, as you’ve loaded items on the shelves … probably the very items whose location we just asked you about.

You’ve borne the brunt of our grocery-store rage. You’ve been yelled at, even cussed, by shoppers whose questions you couldn’t answer; shoppers who needed items that were out of stock (especially the perpetually out-of-stock bathroom

tissue!); shoppers who asked where to find items whose locations you couldn’t recall. Even on a good day, you’ve had to listen to us grouse at the checkout stand about prices, then pay with pennies. And yep, you’ve had to step in and help those of us who have a tough time grasping how to scan our produce and doughnuts at the self-checkout.

I’m betting that you guys have, at times, nearly imploded trying to hold your laughter as you saw us coming into the store looking like those shoppers captured on the website Peopleofwalmart.com or, at best, showing up in our pajama pants with moon, rabbit or rooster motifs, along with bed hair and impossibly furry house shoes.

You’ve had to overhear people complaining about

working from home while you wish you could. You’re concerned that your mask and gloves, the new see-through shields at the checkout stands, the wipes for the carts you have to gather, the limits on the people allowed in the store at any one time, and all other efforts by your employer to keep you and shoppers safe may not be enough. After all, some of you have indeed fallen victim to covid-19.

I humbly thank you for putting your sanity at risk at the best of times; your health at risk in these times.

While I’m at it, I’ll add my thank-yous to all the other essential souls who, in addition to the grocery-store workers and the health workers highlighted last column, can’t hunker down at home … essential manufacturing workers, food preparers and deliverers, truckers, package deliverers, public transit workers, retail workers, taxi/Uber/Lyft drivers, paid and volunteer foodbank distributors, custodians and others.

By the way, those who have found themselves with no jobs to work at home or otherwise deserve not just our thoughts and prayers, but our helping hands, even if from a social distance.

May we and our world soon be restored not just to a place of prosperity, but prosperity with awareness. Awareness of how fragile “normal” can be. Awareness that drives us all to vow to never again allow ourselves to fall into apathy, lethargy, and the taking of life … or the people whose services we depend on … for granted.

Meanwhile, thanks again, grocery workers. I promise a better attitude. Even if the bathroom tissue is out of stock.