I miss the human touch we used to have shopping
Reflecting on habits my parents instilled, shopping is all about the people, not the things
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way we shop—I was a focused, in and out shopper. With groceries, I kept to my list, aware of which items were in which aisles, and systematically gathered them, easing my efficient pace only in the produce section. The only place in the supermarkets I did linger was at the checkout counters. After years of shopping at the same stores, I knew most of the cashiers and floor staff. I would scan the row of cashiers at the registers, searching for my favourite ones, and joined that line, even if it was longer so we could chat if there was no one lined up behind me. Usually it was talk about family life, the news, the weather and during holidays, we’d share our plans. I did the same at the neighbourhood pharmacy and bookstore.
I shopped a couple of times a week, sometimes even daily, picking up an item or two. It never felt like a chore, but rather a satisfying social outing.
All that was obliterated during the first months of the pandemic shutdown and panic buying which made every supermarket or pharmacy visit feel like stockup preparation before a hurricane hit.
When I thought about shopping prior to the pandemic, I realized that many happy memories involved shopping— the treasure hunt search, the browsing and “tapning” (Yiddish for touching and examining) and most of all, the socializing. It struck me that in my approach to shopping I was emulating the behaviour of my late parents.
My parents were gregarious extroverts. They were friendly to everyone and curious about people’s lives and livelihoods, transforming every encounter into a personal one. For them shopping was both a social exchange and a transaction. Their first experience of shopping was in their town’s open marketplaces. “I lost myself in the marketplace,
it was so busy, so hustling,” my mother reminisced. It fascinated her---all the “kibitzing” and good-natured “hondling” (bartering). Her parents sold the shoes my grandfather made by hand at a stall, and her maternal grandmother had a candy stand. Everyone in her family knew all the sellers in the marketplace; buying their produce, milk and cheese from farmers displaying their goods in wagons.
That was what made shopping at Kensington Market such a delight for my mother when she moved to Toronto. I watched both parents recreate that shtetl marketplace experience, befriending staff in stores as we moved from neighbourhood to neighbourhood in Toronto. In every new place it didn’t take long for the shops to become the equivalent of the bar in “Cheers,” a place where everybody knows your name.
As a child sometimes I squirmed at the jokes and duration of the chatter, nudging my parents to hurry up. They would sharply shush me, and outside the store would reprimand me. They both knew from their jobs what it was like to be regarded as a cog in the machinery—my mother had worked in a children’s clothing factory, my father, in a mattress factory. Treat people right, they emphasized. It’s more enjoyable for them, and for you too, they said.
I experienced that for myself when I shopped at the variety store. I felt seen, known and important as the owner greeted me and told me my favourite comic book—Millie the Model—had just arrived. The fact that I responded with “How are you and how’s business?” (my parents’ standard greeting) probably made me stand out from the other children.
My introduction to the joys of window shopping and browsing came during Saturday jaunts with my mother to Eaton’s and Simpson’s at Yonge and Queen Streets. There I could look, but not touch, as my mother would hiss “Makh a sof!” (Stop it!) when the itch to “tapn” proved irresistible. We continued our window-shopping excursions for decades. After the demise of the grand old department stores, the Bloor Street “Mink Mile” became our go-to.
As a teenager my friends and I walked several miles every Saturday to Yorkdale Mall after its opening in1964, window gazing at Holt Renfrew (too intimidated to enter) and browsing and buying at the affordable Fairweather. Though Yorkdale is barely recognizable after all the renovations, the nostalgic pull still draws us.
Grocery shopping became a cherished weekend excursion for my father and I. When he developed Alzheimer’s disease, he lost his driver’s licence, and along with that a valued routine. Since he was such a people person, chatting up staff and customers in the aisles, it was a blow to lose that.
So instead of doing his grocery shopping for him, we began food shopping together. I can still picture him, leaning forward on the shopping cart handle as we went up and down every aisle as he perused the shelves, commenting on new products and packaging, pricing and shelf placement.
All the cashiers were his favourites. To the annoyance of customers behind us, my father would talk for a few minutes with every cashier, as we bagged the groceries—he insisted they worked hard enough and we could do it.
Then he thanked them for their help. Even as his memory worsened, he never forgot to thank anyone who helped him. When he could no longer go to the store without getting disoriented, the cashiers always asked how he was doing, asking me to pass on their best wishes.
My initial glimpse of pandemic shopping frenzy was on the local news where story after story panned the empty shelves, the aisles crowded with shoppers wielding their carts like bumper cars, and the lengthy lines inside and outside the supermarkets. Hoping that the frenzy would eventually subside, I put off shopping until I had no choice.
The crowds were intense, even when the stores opened, and aisles were picked clean. The sight of the empty shelves sparked panic and the urge to stockpile — not that there was stock to stockpile. The staff were harried and overwhelmed by the crush.
I had to go from store to store to find staples like milk, eggs and bread. I recalled my parents’ amazement at the abundance of product.
During the Second World War, both never had enough to eat. And up to now, I had taken it for granted.
Prior to the pandemic I shopped all hours of the day. Now I am up early in the morning to get to the supermarkets before there are line-ups.
At home, there was all that wiping down of products, produce and myself—I’d end up feeling like Karen Silkwood in the movie “Silkwood” after she is scrubbed raw and red after exposure to radiation in the plutonium plant where she worked.
Store staff regulating the number of shoppers entering and exiting to maintain social distancing perimeters, the mask requirements, the hand sanitizer stands at entrances— have become the “new normal.”
However, what makes it more “normal” for me is the resumption of chit-chat with familiar floor staff and cashiers—even through masks, face shields and Plexiglas dividers.
So much has changed, but thankfully that connection, however brief, and mask-muffled, remains.
The window shopping, mall browsing and especially the “tapning” are on hold. Till then, as the Yellow Pages ad used to say, it is my fingers who do the virtual walking.
The sight of the empty shelves sparked panic and the urge to stockpile — not that there was stock to stockpile