To The Berkeley Bowl.
Many of you have heard me rant mightily about the Bowl. The thing is, I LOVE what they sell. 15 different kinds of mushrooms. Organic apples at what Safeway charges for regular ones. More yam varieties than I ever knew existed. But there are three big problems with the bowl. One, they were so afraid of being shorted out of shelving space to sell fifty different gourmet olive oils that they made all of the aisles too narrow. Two, their parking lot sucks, on top of being too small. Three, everyone who shops there really suck (except me, of course!).
So yesterday we pull up at the strategic hour of 2:30 - after the lunch crowd but before the after work crowd And still, I am waiting for someone to walk up to my section of parking lot to leave. Finally a woman appears, walks to her car, and I turn on my turn signal. I wait as she carefully takes each bag and gingerly places it in the back seat of her car. While I watch this, I see a car start to turn into the exit, right next to where this spot is about to open. I see the driver's eyes light up and I understand them perfectly - "Ah HA! See how smart I am - I completely disregard the signs for entrance and exit, completely mess with the flow of traffic, and see how I am rewarded? A SPOT. Just for me!" I then inch the car up slightly, just enough so the passenger sees me and mentiones to her friend that perhaps that spot is spoken for already. The driver reluctantly drives off, as if I have done something wrong by patiently waiting my turn in the parking lot straight from hell.
My slow-lady friend is finally done and she starts wheel her cart back to.... the flowerbed marking the exit. Wow - the cart bay is maybe another 40 feet from where she ditched the cart in freakin' flowers, but evidently she and her Lexus had places to go and flowers to crush, because she couldn't be bothered. But we're finally parked! And I take her abandoned cart, put Berch in, swab down anything in licking distance with an antibacterial cloth, and we're off.
As you can see, Berch has his hand in a box of cereal. He started to breakdown about 10 minutes into the Bowl experience, so I opened up his cereal to give him a few. You'd be amazed how fast a baby can figure out that you are feeding him too slowly and he can stuff way more into his mouth if he finds the source. Behind Berch is just the organic apples and pears. So that should give you an idea of how massive the produce section is. Still, not so big that shoppers with poor shopping form can't infuriate me.
I am a big "cart tucker"; when I am going to park my cart somewhere to peruse some lettuce, say, I try to push the cart as far to the side as I can, making sure that other shoppers can still get by. I'd like to thank my mother for this trait - I don't think she specifically taught this to me, but I am sure it is the result of many examples of good form. Anyway, I am a tucker. As opposed to someone from Berkeley, who feels it's their God-given poser liberal right to stop dead in the middle of the aisle to look at some absolutely lovely shitakes. That's the thing about Berkeley - it's all about peace and love until you ask someone to please move so you can get by. Because once you do that, you're harshing their mellow, man. And Berkeley folks don't like that. In fact, they don't like anything that points out the hypocrisy of their way of life. They are the worst type of liberal - one who loves diversity, as long as it's in a Volvo station wagon and wears Dansko clogs. Really, I had a lady scold me once when I, at a waddlling 9 months, had to reach around my cart and push her cart out of the middle of the aisle. She told me I was "impatient" and could use some lessons in the virtue of "waiting." I am sure the fact that I was bringing another future fossil-fuel lover into the world simply infuriated her. For more insight into this way of thinking, look here.
Still, despite other shoppers' best attempts at clogging the aisles, we kept shopping and tucking, shopping and tucking. It went something like this (moms will recognize this monolouge immediately):
ME: (as I pick through some Romanita tomatoes) Look at all the tomatoes, Berch? Are they red? Are they round? Are they... no..no.. Berch, no, you can't... I guess we'll buy that tomato since you bit through it.
ME: (as I pick through some organic apples for Berch) Look at all of the apples! See, these have some pink and red and yellow, and these are all red, and these...no... no... Berch, no, can I please have th.... I guess we'll buy that apple since you bit through it.
I went on like this through the produce section. Finally, we were on line, where I got to watch the twopeople in front of me stand there while the cashier bagged their groceries. That's a Cali thing - people feel it's beneath them to bag their own groceries. Berch and I kept each other happy anyway, since we were almost out of there.
I'll be back next week.
