At the grocery store today and some guy looking over the asparagus. I wanted some, so I wait…and wait…and go back to the bakery section and pick up some hamburger buns and go back to produce. He’s still there, picking through all of the bundles of asparagus. Now, I’m not usually a confrontational guy, but what the everlasting fuck? You don’t handle things and put them back in the middle of a fucking pandemic.
So I told him “Just grab one and move on, don’t paw at all of them.” He came back with “You don’t even know how much alcohol and sanitizer is on my hands.”
I don’t even make a list of things I need at the store anymore. I just go there and look for the people hanging around items in an aisle the longest, and that’s how I know what I need.
At Home Depot, I just look for the big ladders they have, and then I know that whatever I might need is behind them in that aisle.
Asparagus boy sounds unreasonable, but I have to admit that I have touched things and put them back in the grocery store recently. I am very cognizant of doing it, and it makes me wince a little, but the reasons I’ve done so include
[ol]
[li]Seeing, by virtue of picking it up, that the package of strawberries I selected was getting moldy on the bottom.[/li][li]Finding a product (UHT milk) in another aisle that suited my needs better, after having put a less desirable product (powdered milk) in my basket because I didn’t know the better item was available. (I’m still surprised to have found UHT milk here - this is the first time in 2 years I’ve seen it in Hawai’i.)[/li][li]Discovering a much cheaper option after accidentally picking a more expensive one.[/li][/ol]
Number 3 is arguably my fault, given that it would be smart to check all the options/prices BEFORE putting something into one’s cart (though while I don’t remember the circumstances precisely, I do try to be careful so there may be extenuating circumstances when I did it.)
I dunno … should I just accept the moldy strawberries, put up with the powdered milk, and pay more?
ISTM that while people should strive to be careful, it’s not realistic to demand that nobody touch anything unless they’re 100% certain they’re going to stick with it.
Unless I just saw a stockperson put something out on the shelf in front of my very eyes, I assume it’s been there awhile*. If so it has been handled by dozens of people by the time I get to it. Last I heard (and maybe I’m out of date on this), you can’t get COVID by eating tainted (so to speak) food. Sneezing etc. yeah, and touch sometimes—but not eating it. So would asparagus boy be more dangerous because of the air around him or because of touching something you later touch?
Mrs. L and I try to remind each other to use sanitizer every time we go anywhere. Even if we didn’t buy anything, there’s a good chance we touched some things. Sometimes we buy asparagus that’s already wrapped in plastic, sometimes not. I wonder which is more likely to spread Covid. I’m guessing the plastic but I really don’t know. And I microwave asparagus sometimes, boil it in soup other times, and even put it on the grill. I wonder at what temps the virus might be killed.
*And really, from farm to warehouse to distributor to store to stockperson…?
ETA: Ah the time involved. Yes, some definitely have a decision making disorder.
Actually, it sounds like the title of a song by the Ramones.
*Gonna kill and destroy
I’m not an animal boy
Why don’t they understand
I’m not an asparagus man
Don’t have brain damage
I never fondled the cabbage.
Don’t push me around
Don’t bring my head of lettuce down*
I confess that, in the days when I dared walk into a supermarket, I would gently compress a few plastic-wrapped heads of iceberg lettuce to find a nice firm one. But asparagus? Every bunch looks the same.
*it would not reassure me to be told by the asparagus freak that he was dripping alcohol and hand sanitizer over the display.
There’s an amusing anecdote in the book Eighth Moon. A young woman living in communist China had the chore of lining up every morning to get necessities for her family. She said, “Watever it was being sold, we were certain to need it.” One morning when she finally got to the head of the line, the seller asked her for measurements. “Whose measurements? For what?” The answer was measurements of the deceased so the coffin would fit.
Come to think of it, that might not be too far off in today’s US with the damn dirty lying sack of dung in the White House now.
Before I got locked down here and shopped, I worried about raw produce being touched. I often got the plastic produce bags and grabbed my bananas with my hand inside the bag, inside out. It’s maddening if you fall into the germaphobe rabbit hole.
I’ve been doing it for years.
Someone standing over a produce bin and touching multiple bunches of veg would make me change my dinner plans to another vegatable I found less germy. Mostly it was my imagination. But there you have it.
The whole world has come over to my way of thinking. It seems.
I knew I was right, all along.
But, yeah Asparagus boy needed to be told to move on. Wish I was that brave.
No experience with Asparagus Boy, but I can tell you about Steak Woman.
On my last trip to the supermarket, I needed some ground beef, among other things. As I headed over to the ground beef section, which is next to the steaks, a woman got in front of me. No problem; I can wait at a safe distance.
She couldn’t decide which steak she wanted–looked at one, then at another, then at a third. After about a minute of this, I decided I could come back in a minute or two, so I went down a nearby aisle, up the next aisle (as the floor arrows indicated) getting things I needed in both along the way. Now, let’s head for the meat department.
Steak Woman is still there! Now, she’s taking a photo of two steaks, then concentrating on her phone–I’m assuming she’s texting the photo to somebody and asking their opinion on which steak to buy. Time for another couple of aisles for me. When I return, she’s still standing right where I need to go, still texting.
Thankfully, at that point, she finishes texting, puts a steak in her cart, and moves on. But honestly, she must have been standing there for ten minutes, trying (with the help of her correspondent) to decide on a steak. Fercryingoutloud, Steak Woman, you’ve taken a photo and sent it–move away from the meat department to have your text conversation, so others can get near it!
That’s funny. I never buy UHT milk, but I did last fall in Hawaii. I knew I wanted milk and cereal for breakfast, and that some of the places I was staying had no fridge, and also that I was moving from place to place and leaving my luggage in a hot car. And I found a 12-pack of little cartons of UHT milk. Perfect!! We carried those around until the last place we stayed, which did have a fridge, and where we invested in a half gallon or ordinary milk.
But the Target near Hilo had UHT milk in November.
But then someone else might take one of the steaks as she was trying to decide!
I always assume somebody has sneezed on anything that isn’t covered. In the past I would accept that risk if I wanted a tomato or something (I would wash it before eating), but these days I’m more cautious.
*Can’t decide, can’t decide, all night
Fuck you, the asparagus boy.
Can’t decide, can’t decide, all night
Fuck you, the asparagus boy.
Paintcharge take a drive to the grocer in the store
Just to pick up some buns because s/he needs some more.
He sanitized his hands
He is dripping where he stands
If you want asparagus
Better castigate that man
As a grocery store worker, I’d say the bacon handlers are the worst. You’ll see people dig through several cases of bacon, carefully scrutinizing each one in search of the Perfect Strip, then leave the entire area a mess that takes longer to reorganize than it does to stock.
