you are the most important person here

A Fresh & Easy recently opened in our area. We went to check it out on the day of the grand opening - at 9pm it was still a zoo! There were so many people that the lines to check out stretched down the aisles, making it impossible to actually shop. We finally found a shopping cart around the middle of the store. It was crazy! Still, we spent about $40.

For those unfamiliar, Fresh & Easy is a British store, slowly starting to invade the US. It's like Trader Joe's meets 7-11 (without that coffee and despair smell) and a pinch of CostCo for good measure. The target audience seems to be people who want to cook a healthy meal at home, but don't have the time to do all the prep work. Thus, they sell lots of freshly prepared meals that just need to be heated. All the produce is pre-packed, as are the meats. They sell milk, eggs, and bread along with the top sellers in major super markets. So you'll be able to get Cheerios and a 12-pack of Coke. They also carry a large variety of over the counter remedies from pain relief to foot cream. Unlike big box stores though, they usually only carry one size and variety of an item. They also have their own brand.

One of the things that has made them famous is that they have $5 off coupons. Reportedly you can ask for one if you are at the store, and they will gladly oblidge. You can also find them in the weekly flyers that they are mailing to nearby residents. The coupon requires a $20 purchase and alcohol, tax, and in some states milk, are excluded.

While making my way through the maze of customers on that opening night, I ran into one of the big wigs while looking for a package of fresh chicken ravioli. He had an English accent, so may have been from headquarters. I don't know. He had been talking the woman manning the sample bar about how she had run out of samples. Then he stopped and said to me, "remember that you are the most important person here." It was not what I would have expected anyone to say to me, and it was so out of nowhere. I didn't know what to say, so just smiled, grabbed my ravioli and went to find B so we could get in line.

I know that he was just doing his job marketing, but it truly was something I needed to hear. One of my big issues is worthiness, or unworthiness, to be more precise. I often feel like I don't belong. I also feel like I don't deserve anything but misery. It's sad, but true.

Part of it is waking up in a place that isn't my own, but I know it goes far deeper than that. Whenever my Mom and I really got into it - where I ended up crying so hard I couldn't breathe - it was always about not feeling worthy. I was reminded in little ways how hard it was being a single parent. I often felt like my sister and I held my mother back. And of course, on some level I felt like maybe she would have stopped drinking if she hadn't had us to deal with.

It hasn't helped that the initial reaction B's father had to me was crying. B told me that the only other time he had seen his father cry was as his father's mother's funeral. Knowing what that pain feels like, I can't even explain how it felt to know that.

Of course I know that I can't help how other people feel. No one can. That is up to us. And so I take this message from a random British stranger and try to feel important, because I am. All of us are.


on the night stand :: Ms. Hempel Chronicles

nobody walks in l.a.

For whatever reason, this popped into my head today. Maybe it was because I was thinking it might be a good idea to make plastic grocery bags out of a material that was soluble in water (then again maybe not). Or maybe it was because I was feeling a bit caged up and remembering a time when I made do.

During my first two years of college, I lived in a planned community several miles from campus. Not having a car, was clearly not part of the plan. Still, somehow I managed.

The walk to the bus stop was just shy of half a mile. It really wasn't that far, but unless I wanted to hop a fence, I had to go the long way around - short cuts were also not in the plan.

I waited for the bus in a strawberry field. It is no longer a strawberry field. There are now rows of identical homes. There was no bench, just a bus stop sign. After a rain, which was thankfully rare, I had to deal with mud.

The bus schedule sucked. At peek hours the bus came by twice an hour. Otherwise it ran hourly. The last bus home left campus at 9:03pm. Needless to say, I was not a party girl.

Grocery shopping was quite a chore. Plastic bags were just becoming popular, and made it possible for me to carry more than I would have if I had to carry a paper sack by the bottom. By the time I got to the front door my fingers were numb.

One day I remember returning home from the grocery store and one of my bags breaking along the way. Inside was a glass jar of pasta sauce. It shattered all over the sidewalk, making a big red mess. I felt terrible, but I had a hard enough time getting everything else home. By the time I did, I was exhausted.

When I went back later, someone had cleaned it up. I was so embarrassed, but not enough to knock on the door and apologize. I was also afraid that I had broken some rule of the community and figured I would be cited and fined.


on the night stand :: Girls in Trucks