Grocery Shopping

So most of my "adjustmenting" has been lying around the house, appreciating television and climate control (More On What I've Missed Most In A Future Post, Coming Soon). I did go to the grocery store, which had my folks worried about me having culture shock. Here's what I expected to experience:

"Hi there! You grocery shopping?" Yep. "Doing the whole store?" Yep. "Ah man that's so cool. I'm just here to get some milk. You see I have a job and my wife and kids are waiting out in the car, otherwise I'd shop through the whole store." Okay. "When'd you start?" About 20 minutes ago. "And when do you hope to be done?" I don't know, 10 minutes from now? "Did you hear about that girl that shopped through every aisle in 4 minutes?" Yeah vaguely. "You going Bakery to Pharmacy or Pharmacy to Bakery?" Pharmacy to Bakery. "Oh really? Most people don't go that way, as the main entrance is near the Bakery and Checkout is closer to the Pharmacy side. Ah so you're almost done! You only have like 2 aisles left in the store. Congratulations! Hey man you want some coupons?" Um, sure. "Yeah, you know, Grocery Magic. I like to give to others sometimes." I see. "How many things do you put in your cart per aisle?" I don't know, it varies. "You got some Corn Flakes in your cart, you really like Corn Flakes?" Obviously. "I prefer Raisin Bran myself. It's got more fiber per serving, it's got environmentally-friendly packaging, plus a dual-core 3 GHz processor." I don't care. "And you should really eat your cereal in Almond milk. That's what I'm here to buy." So go do that. "Have you seen any of the people who work here?" Yeah, a mom and two cubs. "Oh man what'd you do? I'd have been so scared" Just went about my business. It's more concerned about restocking the aisles and protecting its young than bothering with you. But if you just leave your food lying around they'll take it back to their den. "You grocery shopping all by yourself?" Yes. "You ever get lonely?" That's the furthest thing from the truth right now. "Yeah my friend Mike's cousin thru-shopped the grocery store back in 2005........"

And then repeat. With every single person you pass in the store. Again. And again. But lo and behold it was not like that. People kept to themselves. And, despite having very narrow aisles that forced you to pass within close proximity of each other, you did not end up sucked into a 20 minute conversation while your ice cream was melting. No, I said maybe four polite words to the woman at checkout and I didn't utter a single other word the whole time I was in there. It was awesome.

I was a bit of a recluse before I started, and some might think a 6-month hike would change that. But in actuality I moved in the opposite direction of what most would think: I'm even more of a recluse. It's not that I'm now afraid of the big, bad world out there now. It's never seemed less intimidating, to be honest. But my time on the A.T. was, in fact, time spent in public space. I've had no privacy. At any given moment a stranger might walk up and sleep 6 inches next to you sleeping in a shelter. While I now trust in the goodness of mankind more than ever (I never met a single hiker the whole time who had had anything stolen from him/her on the trail) I do believe that to achieve Happiness (and Security) is to be able to sleep behind a locked door. I'll post a list of what I've missed or appreciate the most soon, and being able to lock the place where you sleep at night is one of them.