Sometimes I love going to the supermarket.
A good supermarket is a happy place with bright shiny displays, and where clean seems to almost ooze from every hard surface. It is a place of affluence with variety in every imaginable commodity and shelves stuffed to bursting. It is the land of plenty with all those lovely goods placed on the shelves in an attractive manner in order to get you to take them home and make them your very own.
The supermarket is the land of instant gratification. You can buy everything there from anal analgesic to zip-lock bags; all in one shiny, happy place.
Imagine my disappointment in stepping into the local ‘supermarket’ here in the land of the lost in Northern New Mexico.
I was hoping for a reasonable but not too large deli section with some nice hot foods that I could take back to the doghouse to enjoy not cooking. I was imagining a nice tasty chicken and a side of beans or something else that would make me feel fat and happy, or perhaps even some macaroni salad.
The ‘deli’ was cold, dark, and silent. There were a few meats behind the slightly brown bubble front display, but I ate my disappointment and went further into this market of a mildly disappointing existence in the hopes that I could find something that would appeal to me.
Everything was slightly dirty. Even the light bulbs were covered in a protective layer of dirt; diffusing the light and making everything seem slightly out of focus. The fruit and veggies brought their own dingy covering that the workers did not seem to think needed to be removed.
This entire place has a very thin yet remarkably tenacious layer of dirt that clings to everything and brings along with it a certain third world charm. Bottles fail to shrug off the errant particles and anything even close to a flat surface is a collecting place for greasy dust particles and grime.
The largest and the cleanest display in the entire store was the tortilla case. Inside was every shape and size of tortilla known to man. Rounds, rectangle, square and irregular; cooked and uncooked, some even resemble Jesus in the jungle with John Jacob Jingle- Hammer flowing behind.
I don’t like tortillas that much. I didn’t know anyone did until now.
Let’s just say that I left without a chicken or any tortillas.
I don’t think that they deserve to have the word ‘supermarket’ on the sign out front.
