Ripe Fruit

I usually shop at Smith's, a habit that started when I was working in the neighborhood, and now find it hard to break just because learning the aisles of a new store is more than my lazy self wants to take on. Well, there is a bit more to it than that. Smith's has the biggest collection of electric carts for the handicapped of any store in town and I need it because of arthritic hips and knees. I can still push a basket, basically using it as a prop, but I can't really do a big shopping trip that way so I do appreciate having a cart. But of course all the people in town who need a cart go to Smith's for that reason, so if you don't get there early enough all the carts will be in service already, and all the handicap parking spaces will be gone too. I hardly ever get a handicap parking space though I do usually snag a cart. A few times I've had to wait for one.

Walmart has put many of the other local stores out of business, even the chain stores. Maybe that's a bad thing but I'm not entirely sure. Safeway went a couple years ago, before that Scolari's, Albertson's was replaced by Sak N Save. I'm not sure why Smith's has held on because they really aren't that good a store. Produce especially is low quality.

Despite having to push a basket at Walmart, and the fact that the store is ten times the size of Smith's, I'm usually glad for the occasional trip there just because their produce is GOOD. High turnover is the reason, they say, but honestly, if Smith's made the effort to have good produce they'd soon have the high turnover. I remember about five years ago when they happened to have a wonderful stock of ripe peaches. Wonderfully perfectly ripe, you could smell them from aisles away. The produce section was mobbed with people getting them in huge bags, and I was one of the mob. If they kept getting good produce they'd keep getting the mobs, I don't know why they don't know that. Good ripe peaches are a luxury around here. Too many stores, not just Smith's, get them too green and they just rot instead of ripening. But a ripe peach, yum! It will last a few days in the fridge and it's such a treat.

Because my car wouldn't start a few days ago I got a ride to Wal-Mart with someone who was going there, one of those rare trips, and again I was reminded that they have good produce and again I think how I should make the effort to go there more often, knowing I don't because it's too much of a hassle. But for that occasion I was happy. Yes, even peaches, not fully ripe yet but you could tell they were going to ripen instead of rotting because they were yellow, not green, in the stem well, and they SMELLED like ripe peaches. Oh joy. Then the strawberries -- red on the top of the container and red on the bottom too! They are often as much as 50% yellow or white at Smith's. But today no rotting ones either, smelled like... ripe strawberries! Oh joy and a half! Oh and then the asparagus! Smith's doesn't even get much asparagus any more and when they do nobody wants to buy it. And big fat red tomatoes! And ripe mangoes!

Why am I writing this? Maybe it's that small pleasures can make up for big bad moods. At least I can dare to eat a peach. As long as my fruit fly trap is working as well, this is Sheer Happiness.