The Things we Keep

I helped my friend Deborah move last week. We quickly transitioned from the stage of lovingly holding treasures and thinking about the memories they evoked, to wanting to torch the whole house, crushed by the sheer volume of accumulated stuff.

I felt those same sensations when my family moved two years ago. On the final exhausted, emotional morning, my carport was full of piles that hadn't made the first, second, or third purges, but simply could NOT come to the new house with us in the end.

Yet today, I still have too much stuff.

Both my friend's life of late and mine are examples of what we already knew-- the words painted on the wall at my old house-- "The best things in life aren't things." 

We get it.

Yet still, we do have THINGS, which is never more clear than when we must move them from one place to another.

I wanted to help Deborah more than I did, because choosing what to keep and what to donate is extremely personal. The humblest item could be full of meaning, while the most expensive isn't.

For example, one of my family's treasures is a big brown plastic mixing bowl with a handle and a spout.  It used to have a buddy, a slightly smaller orange counterpart, until Shadow chewed it up a few years ago.

These bowls have always reminded me of my childhood, a time when I felt nurtured and safe. I remember my dad sitting in his brown and orange rocking chair in his pj's, chowing down on multiple scoops of ice cream from the orange bowl, while wielding an enormous spoon.

That orange bowl took me right back to the 70's. To unsupervised kids making ice cream floats in tall glasses, always adding extra Coke as we drank them down. To roaming the neighborhood. To four square in the driveway and kick ball in the street. To bikes with banana seats, jaunts to 7-11, and the hot walk to the pool in bare feet. To figuring out how to navigate the culture of growing up.

The big brown bowl reminds me of popcorn, and watching movies with my mom and a string of friends and boyfriends on our plaid couch in the early 80's. To a nascent social life, still in the security of my home. To sleepovers, siblings, first kisses, and Saturday Night Live.

Today, when Margaret makes popcorn for one of our Survivor marathons, she always reaches for the brown bowl. She knows it's impossible to pop every kernel, that the good pieces always run out too soon, and that even though we pass the bowl back and forth between three people now, not four, it represents both her past and her present. I have a feeling that as long as the dogs never get a hold of the bowl, it will end up in her home when she is an adult.

To most eyes, the bowl is insignificant and even ugly. It does not give me the same thrill of promise and orderliness and beauty I get when I browse the matching housewares in a Target aisle.

But to my eyes, the big brown bowl means family.

What is something that you keep that would not mean anything to outside eyes?

6 Little Words

Years ago, I was helping out at Jack's Christmas party at school. I think it may have been 5th grade. One of the activities was to have the kids write something they could give Jesus for Christmas. I can't remember what they did after that-- perhaps we hung it in a tiny stocking on Christmas Eve. I do remember watching Jack as he sat, pencil in hand, and wondering what he would write. Would he take the assignment seriously, or would he make up something silly? The other kids were writing, and writing, and writing. Were the promising they would be more obedient in the coming year, be better siblings, or give their allowances to the needy? I never knew. But I did see Jack write something on his piece of paper and fold it up into a teeny tiny bundle. At some point later I had a chance to snoop look at it. This is what it said:

I want to love you more

 

6 little words.

I realized in that moment that my heart and my son's hearts were the same. There were many things I could do and could promise to "give" to God in the coming year, but my true desire was to love Him more. And I believed that loving Him more would help me love others better.

But even then, I knew I couldn't WILL myself into more love. I couldn't generate love either, although LOVING ACTIONS can often lead to feelings of love. I knew then, and I know even more now, that as long as I am living in this world with family, friends, neighbors, and strangers, I will need more love than I have. Slights linger. Hurts dull but resist healing. Expectations seem unmet. I don't love God as much as I wish I did (and He's, um, GOD), so how on earth can I love wretched humans like me? Especially me?

Last night Margaret and I finished reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. Corrie tells of touring the world speaking of love and hope amidst horrible circumstances, something she learned first-hand while imprisoned in a concentration camp after helping Dutch Jews evade capture during WWII. At one of her speeches after the war, a former SS guard that Corrie recognized stretched out his hand to her. He was full of contrition as he thanked her for her message of God's forgiveness. Corrie couldn't shake it. All of the memories of the camp filled her mind and her heart. She couldn't lift her hand from her side. Despite God's faithfulness and provision, despite all she knew and preached about forgiveness, Corrie could not take his hand. It was simply too much to ask her to do. She prayed, but nothing happened.

"I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. 'Jesus I cannot forgive him. Give your forgiveness.'"

"Into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so I discovered that is its not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When he tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself."

This made me think again of Jack's "gift" those years ago. 6 little words. It was nothing, really, that Jack could give on his own. Jack needed the receiver of the gift to do the providing, to be the giver of LOVE.

So perhaps the only gift I can give this year is really a humble, silent prayer. For more love to love God with, and for His love to give me what I so desperately need in order to love others.


More Love.

Love More.

Love.

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Where I Lived Wednesday

The big yellow farmhouse stood on an acre, surrounded by tall oak trees. The neighboring colonials and split levels may have had garbage disposals and pink toilets, patios and barbeque pits— things our house lacked-- but we had a hundred plus years of history, three big broad porches covered by a red tin roof, and an enormous yard that made it the perfect place to play. We had dense woods in the back for building forts, and the best climbing trees in the neighborhood, inexplicably named by us, “The Titanic,” and “The Three-Double Tree.” The woods housed a small pet graveyard, where gerbils and fish and poor Squeaky the squirrel were laid to rest. There was a forsythia bush so large my sister and I could climb inside it and play undetected.

The oval gravel driveway in front of the house was for playing two square-- you just dragged your sneaker through the rocks to mark off the boundaries.  The driveway was also, to our mother’s annoyance, a favorite place to drop our bikes on the way into the house. Although raised a proper southern lady, Mom was apt to throw around “shit” and “damn” which made us giggle. Common uses were, “I almost ran over those damn bikes again,” or, “Why the shit is that cat always under my feet?” as she tried to cook in our hot, un-airconditioned kitchen, bulky glasses sliding down her nose, papers and plants and food and chaos erupting around her.

One of our big side yards had a crop of bamboo to hide in, as well as a low spot that would flood every few years during rainstorms, a perfect place for sloshing around in rubber boots on a rainy day or floating an umbrella upside down like a boat. The other was for football games and freeze tag and late summer nights throwing tennis balls in the air, daring the bats to swoop down and scare us. Beside the big holly bush was a patch of grass so smooth and silky, so different from any other spot in the yard, that I would nestle there for a long time, looking up at the sky, stroking the grass with my fingers. I tried to find pictures in the clouds, but never did.

This is where we played a game with the low hanging branch of a huge oak tree. Three or four kids would pull the branch down, as close to the ground as possible. On “three!” they all would let go except the one who would get a ride, bouncing high in the air and hanging on for dear life. It was a favorite game until my sister Liz lost her grip and fell, landing hard on the roots below. She was in traction for two weeks, during which time I showed my true colors by being jealous of all the attention and gifts she received, and Mom and Dad eventually outlawed the tree game.

Sometimes we left the house in the morning and came back in at dinner. We traveled in packs. The neighbors had various signals to get their children home. Mr. Rooney would whistle in a distinctive way, and Mrs. Shenk would stand on the metal stoop outside her kitchen door and ring a little silver triangle. Margaret, my mother, would just yell, “Kids! Dinnertime!” and we were usually close enough to hear. If not, someone else would eventually send us on our way.

It’s not like Mom wasn’t around, but she didn’t hover. When we got old enough to play on our own, she was usually in the kitchen or working on a home project to try to keep the old house from falling down around our ears. Sometimes she would nap on the couch, an open magazine face down on her sizeable chest. Her smile was quick, her heart was huge, and neighborhood kids loved her, forming relationships that lasted even after the three of us were out of the house. Kids hung out at our house, because our mother wasn’t too strict, she didn’t get upset when we made a mess, and she was easy to talk to.

I remember once when a bunch of us went to her for counsel over some neighborhood squabble. After the other kids had gone home, Mom said in frustration, “I’m glad everyone likes playing here; I just wish sometimes they’d want to go somewhere else!” I was surprised to hear her say that. I got a rare, early glimpse that living in community could be annoying or messy. When I became a mom, dealing with the complicated act of being involved in others’ lives, sometimes I too would be tempted to draw inward and just stick with family. But that’s not the way my mother rolled, and I wanted to be just like her, minus the coke bottle glasses, of course. I always thought she'd be there to welcome me home.

Our lives centered around that big old house, the elementary school across the street, and our church on the other side of town.

Life felt stable and safe.

That old house is still there.

We sold it 10 years after my mom died at age 46. I used to fantasize about raising my future children in that old house, walking them to elementary school and the pool down the street. I could picture it all so vividly. And when Jack and Margaret came along, I could put names, faces, and personalities to the fantasy.

Before our most recent move I contacted the owners, to see if they would be interested in selling, so that perhaps Margaret could go to my old high school, and fall asleep in my attic bedroom,  hearing the rain pound down on the slanted metal roof a few feet above her head. Maybe she would watch movies while soaking in the claw foot tub, the way I planned my Friday night bubble baths and Alberto V05 hot oil treatments around new episodes of Falcon Crest on a portable Black and White TV. 

The owners are staying put for the time being.

The house is now blue.

Life has been strange, unexpected, and anything but safe.

But there's still a place in the back of my mind where I can picture being there again. Not with my mom. Not with little Jack and Margaret, or with teenage Margaret, but perhaps with grandkids sitting next to me, swinging and swatting away flies, on the wide front porch.

***
I'm linking up with Ann Imig and others to share stories for #WhereILivedWednesday

Cancun Getaway!

We are back from 5-ish days in paradise. Based on our friend's recommendation, we booked a tropical vacation to the Moon Palace Resort in Cancun, Mexico and I'd have to give it two huge thumbs up! In fact my thumbs might be especially huge today because of all of the delicious food we ate. Three meals a day with dessert? Yes, please.

The room was even fully stocked with an open bar! It was wasted on me. I traveled with my own Constant Comment tea bags as I am known to do.

I didn't take as many photos as I wish I had, but maybe these will warm you up on a cold, snowy day. Either that, or they'll  make you seethe with jealousy. But I hear that seething is warm, too, so that'll work.

And as much as I love a nice break, it's always good to come home. I'm so glad to be back here with you today.

 Not afraid to rock the long sleeved Land's End swim shirt. No sunburns here!

 Margaret started reading The Glass Castle as soon as I finished it. Maybe she'll think Tim and I are awesome parents now!

 Love that face!

 A drip castle, like old times.

Speaking of old, old friends are the best. So happy to see my friend Ana who lives in Cancun after so many, many years.

 View from our room.

 Why I could never move to a tropical paradise without a personal hairstylist.

 Weather was perfect! Not hot or cold.

 Painting pottery.

 How fun would it be to have a little thatch umbrella in our back yard?

Or maybe one of these?

Oh well. There's no place like home!

The Radio

I had an emergency radio. I bought it from L.L. Bean, and it had a hand crank-- no batteries needed. It had a flashlight, an alarm signal, and a place you could plug in a cellphone to charge. It came in a small black case and made me feel prepared. For what, I'm not so sure. I envisioned it would be useful in a blizzard, a hurricane or a terrorist attack.

Perhaps I thought that in buying such a thing, I was sending out a message to the universe that I'd done my due diligence, so any crisis could/should just move right along please. I carried it from house to house in my young mothering like I'd moved my dog-eared junior high folder with CPR instructions in it, making a mental note to myself when the guidelines dropped the 2 breath standard in favor of just chest compressions. Surely, if I'd carried that green folder off to college, and grad school, and into home ownership and motherhood, I'd be off the hook from actually having to perform CPR, from the terrifying privilege of having to save a life.

I write this today because on the balmy afternoon and evening of Jack's accident, it never crossed my mind to get out the emergency radio. We were tucked in our cozy home. We were laughing. We were snacking. Yes, we were experiencing very strange and notable weather, but it just didn't click with me that there could be danger on our plain little cul de sac. Life seemed so normal. So relaxed. So hopeful.

Perhaps the radio could have alerted me to just how bad the situation was, if I'd bothered to turn it on. Maybe it could have snapped me to attention. Who knows? Like my neighbors up and down the street, who sent their kids out in the rain to play, I was living in the middle of an emergency situation without even realizing it.

I guess the radio didn't do the real job I bought it for.

Zipped up in its little black case, among the kids' backpacks and sports equipment, it didn't serve as any kind of insurance policy that bad things wouldn't happen to our family.

Cicada Springtime

When Jack was turning 5 and Margaret was 2, we had the 17 year Cicadas here in Virginia. The only time I’d experienced them before was, well, 17 years earlier when I was a teenager. I didn’t give them much attention then, just flicked them off my towel when they interfered with “laying out” in my bikini in the backyard.

In 2004, however, I was in my 30’s and I got into cicadas BIG-TIME. I knew it would be the only time they would appear during my kids’ childhood, and I wanted to make the most of it. So while some drivers were freaking out and running into lampposts when wayward cicadas got into their cars, I was letting Jack give his "favorite" ones rides to and from the preschool playground so they could have “a change of scenery.”

We would search our tree trunks for signs of cicadas emerging from their shells, or exoskeletons. It was a-ma-zing to see that in action! We put up with the incessant noise of their mating calls, because we found the red-eyed creatures so fascinating. Jack held the live ones cupped loosely in his hands, and collected hundreds of empty shells in an old spaghetti sauce jar.

I remember looking out the kitchen door one day at his stricken face. He clutched his jar tightly as a live cicada crawled up his neck toward his ear. “It crawled all the way up me but I couldn’t get it or I’d ‘dwop’ my exo'skeya'tons!” he said, in his serious little voice after I’d scooped the huge insect off his scrawny little neck. That jar still sits on the dresser in Jack’s room; in fact, it freaked out a German exchange student who slept in there last August. She had never seen such a thing and was afraid “the creatures” were alive.

So we made the most of the cicadas. We bought Jack a cicada t-shirt, which he wore for the next 5 years. We discussed how some people were celebrating our cicada spring by eating them…covered with chocolate…but we never tried that. I took my all-time favorite picture of Jack covered with the cicada shells. The entertainment value the bugs brought to this stay at home mom and her kids during those long spring days was well worth the time I had to spend later, shoveling rotting cicada carcasses into the trash can with a snow shovel.

You see, the cicadas didn’t live long. They came out of the ground, molted, courted, mated, laid eggs, and died. Start to finish? 4-6 weeks. I remember talking to the kids about what I considered to be the cicadas’ pathetic life cycle. I mean who wants to wait underground for SEVENTEEN YEARS just to come out, sing a few songs, lay some eggs, and then DIE?????

We did the math and figured out that Margaret would be 19 and Jack 21 when they came back. And Good Lord, I would be in my FIFTIES! It would be a very long wait, but I enjoyed thinking that in 2021 we would reminisce about our Cicada Springtime.

But now Jack won’t be here to see them, and I’m probably going to need to hibernate underground at bit myself that spring just to get through the ordeal. Because never in a million years did it cross my mind that both my kids would not be around to see the cicadas again. I mean, I worried a bit about myself, since my mom died at 46, but I barely even allowed myself to go THERE in my mind.

And Jack’s short time on earth, followed by what is going to seem like a hell of a long wait for his mom, dad, sister, family and friends to endure until we are together again, makes 17 years not seem so bad.

So Much to Lose

I walked into the house and threw the keys on the long dining room table. Instead of going straight upstairs, something led me to the kitchen. My 46 year old mom was seated at the table, still dressed from a lunch out with the girls, her back ramrod straight. She said nothing. I gave her a smooch on the head and then realized something was wrong. She couldn’t talk.

Six weeks before, life as we knew it had changed. While I was sunning and funning on the beach in Key West, my mother had a brain aneurysm. I didn’t find out until later when I flew back home from Spring Break, badly sunburned but ready to dive back into my freshman year of college. This was before cell phones, and my dad hadn’t known where to reach me at the rundown motel where my friends and I were staying.

Long, scary days in ICU, then a regular room, followed by recovery at home, and we thought my mom was on the mend. My sister, brother, and I went back to college at our mother’s urging: Go, you have a life, you have things to take care of… and we did.

My mother adjusted to the new reality of giving up her car for a whole year (people who have had a seizure should not drive), scaling back her business, and focusing on recovery. She was almost herself. She didn’t like having an aide stay with her during the days, because she felt like she had to entertain her. She liked it best when her friends would come just to hang out. We never discussed my leaving school and taking care of her.

She did not lose her spunk. In language therapy, she had to write a sentence involving kittens. No “The cat sat on the rug,” for her. Her sentence read something like, “The coddled and capricious kittens constantly craved quality quilts.”

Freshman year ended and I came home. And now, after a day of shopping and spending time at the tanning booth, I found myself standing in front of my silent mother, and she needed me.

I called 911 and the ambulance arrived shortly. Four men came in the house. One said to his buddies, “Hey, we’ve been here before. This is the same lady who was yelling and screaming and seizing a few weeks ago.” I hated him. I wanted to make him pay for his insensitivity -- for planting that image in my brain—but I was 18, my mother was not acting like my mother, and I kept my mouth shut.

Back to the hospital for more tests and procedures. Within a few days she seemed like herself again. My long distance boyfriend had a week of dances and festivities at the Air Force Academy. My mother told me to go. “Just make sure your boob doesn’t fall out the side of that green formal dress,” she laughed. Go, you have a life, you have things to do…and so I did.

Dances, parties, we had a lovely time. My mom sounded like herself on the phone whenever I called. But something had changed. The word Cancer was mentioned for the first time. Biopsy. Should I come home early?

Stay, you have a life… I’ll see you when you get home. So I stayed.

More next post...

Thanks for the Memories!

Do you have a memory box? A real or figurative place where you keep memories to pull out as needed? I have several boxes of notes from good friends, family members and former students that I can pull out every once in a while. They remind me of good days, and of moments when I’ve done something well. They remind me that I have indeed tried new things and risen to challenges, aspects of my life I forget when faced with something new.

Well, today I got something wonderful for my figurative memory box. A former student wrote about me on her new blog. She’s one of the special girls I had in English and yearbook class—my partners in staying up late, pigging out, telling embarrassing stories about myself and meeting deadlines.

Sometimes it felt like the only things separating me from the students were my huge shoulder pads and my teacher-like walk. My first yearbook editor was 18 to my 23 years old and she pulled me through my first year on the job.

I got a bit of a rep as a young teacher for favoring the girls, and between my love of teaching Jane Austen and my realization that becoming super-close to teenage boys was NOT a good idea, I guess they were right. After all, we had a few incidents of Mary Kay Letourneau-like behavior at our school, and I certainly wasn’t up for that sort of thing.

More importantly, however, I loved teaching these young women and watching them mature because I saw them as much better versions of myself. Did I work on the yearbook when I was in high school? No way. Too much work. I was afraid it would cut into my social life.

So you can imagine how impressed I was by these young girls, these leaders, who took on so much responsibility. I loved seeing them go from giggling 9th or 10th graders, to seniors with one foot out the door into the world. By the end of senior year, they weren’t sharing as much info with me as they had been, and it reminded me of the growth, separation, and some secrecy that marked the spring of my senior year.

Now they are all grown up, in their late 20’s to mid-30’s and I have the honor of keeping up with them as peers through blogging and Facebook. I’ve gone from Ms. See to Anna.

I attended a funeral today, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I’ve made any difference in anyone’s life, as the wonderful woman who died most certainly did. To receive today’s timely addition to my memory box was a wonderful gift. Thanks, ELowman!

What do you do to remind yourself of your braver, stronger self? Is it a letter, a photo, or maybe a comment on your blog?

A Sense About Scents

While I was making a pit stop in the teachers’ lounge yesterday, I saw a jumbo bottle of Jean Nate' After-Bath Splash on the counter. I could not believe it. One sniff and I was transported back, way back, to the 70’s. If asked, I would not have been able to conjure up a memory of this smell, but as I placed a few drops on my wrists, I felt about 11 years old again. I was in elementary school, digging through my mother’s things, trying out her jewelry and face creams, maybe even riding my bike the one mile to the drug store to buy a bottle of it and my first (roll on!) deodorant.

Throughout the day, I sniffed my wrists and thought about other scents and what they meant to me.

Shortly after Jean Nate' came Love’s Baby Soft. This is also when I started applying light blue eye shadow to my lids in the bathroom at school. My sixth grade picture (with pink sweater and red shirt!) shows a hint of this covert operation. I thought I was pretty subtle with my application, but when I came into the classroom after having my picture taken, a boy immediately said, “Nice eye shadow.” Yikes. I had 4-6 weeks to wonder just how obvious it would be in the photos. Love’s Baby Soft represented 6th through 8th grades, as I gingerly tested the waters of becoming a teenager.

High school meant getting out the big guns, scent-wise. It was the 80’s, the age of excess. My sister and I now had possession of our parents’ credit cards and weren’t afraid to use them. We were still girls inside, but our changing bodies and changing tastes led us to apply some heavy-hitting and expensive “adult” perfumes each day before school. I leaned toward Opium and White Shoulders, while she favored Giorgio. We had big hair, big shoulder pads, big attitudes, and big scents. A sniff of any of these still catches me off guard. Not only do they seem almost overpoweringly strong to me now, since I haven’t worn perfume in about 15 years, one whiff makes me feel young again. I don’t necessarily mean in a good way. I’m talking about the angst, the late-night phone calls with boyfriends—phone cord stretched as far as it would go for maximum privacy-- and the major insecurity that went along with navigating complicated social terrain. No amount of hair mousse, stonewashing on my jeans, or expensive perfume could make me entirely comfortable in my own skin even though those were special, exhilarating times.

I don’t know which scents take you back, or where they take you. It could be something that reminds you of your mom, grandmother, or a lost love. When I told my husband I might be interested in starting to wear perfume again, he quickly suggested Chanel #5. I’d be interested in hearing what it reminds him of. I even purchased a bottle of my mother’s favorite perfume a few years ago to see if smelling it would help me feel connected to her. Memorable scents might not be perfume—how about Bain de Soleil suntan oil (we didn’t call it sunscreen in those days), Ponds Cold Cream or even Ben-Gay? I’d love to hear about the scents that transport you to a different time and place.

I can’t help but wonder if my kids’ memories of these years will be conjured up by Bounce sheets and dog pee.

If you would like to subscribe to my blog, please go to the very bottom of the page to the button that says: Subscribe: Posts. Thanks!-- Anna See

Community Theater

As I pull up to my grocery store I see Brenda, the deli clerk, smoking on the loading dock. This does not bode well for my prospects of getting my favorite sliced turkey today. Even if I start in produce and work my way around to the deli, chances are she’ll still be puffing away by the time I’m ready to check out. When I tell people in my town I go to this particular grocery store, they wonder why I put up with the long lines, surly workers, and half-empty shelves. We live in the comfort and plenty of suburbia, but occasionally my store’s shelves look more like those in a communist country when I can find neither milk nor bread.

There are many reasons I shop there.

The biggest reason is familiarity. Very little ever changes, so I know where everything is. A couple of years ago they moved the ricotta, but other than that, it seems to be the same place it was when I was a kid. I like how the store isn’t so big that I feel I’ve had a workout going from the fruit to the cereal. I have fond memories of my mom handing me a box of Fiddle Faddle, still found on the same shelf today, to eat while we shopped. We would sheepishly hand over the half-eaten box to the clerk when it was time to check out. I’m too much of a control freak to ply my kids with the same sugary snacks, but I love that memory and those conjured up by the full-sized Snickers bars still stacked near the register.

They checkers stay the same, too. There is Mr. Ed, a gentle man who has known me since I was a kid. I remember coming into the store after having been out of state for grad school and Mr. Ed asked after my mother. I had to tell him she died. We both felt pretty awkward. I found myself going to the super-store down the street for a couple of months, looking for some anonymity, but I was drawn back to Mr. Ed and my store.

He is the same clerk I talk high school basketball with, and the one who gently accepted my 4 year old’s apology when Jake stole a pack of gum. We were halfway home when I saw Jake holding it, and back to the store we went. A quick prayer of repentance in the parking lot, then in we went to seek out Mr. Ed. I have no recollection of stealing anything from the store when I was little, but I like the idea that my own mother would have dragged me back in to Mr. Ed, too.

Another clerk, Frank, is about my age. We went to rival high schools. He always thought he might like to go back to school to become a math teacher, and he wonders when I’ll go back to teaching. We talk about that sometimes. He continues to be a checker, and I show few signs of returning to my old job.

Raoul, in Dairy, has what my neighbor refers to as “bedroom eyes.” At first I thought he was coming on to me when he gazed at me with those smoldering looks, but I may have been flattering myself as more times than not I go in the store in my comfy pants, an inch of gray, and pink clog slippers. I enjoy listening as Raoul talks about the trials of being a single father to teenaged daughters. I like how our conversation goes beyond the weather or the price of milk.

My friends’ biggest complaint is the slow service and the length of the lines. I have never seen more than 3 of the 10 check stands open. I don’t mind. This wait time lets me read Us Weekly and other magazines I’d never buy. If I choose the right line, I can get a good dose of celebrity fluff by the time my cart reaches the check stand. This is also a good chance to listen to the bickering and banter of the staff. Managers come and go here, but the checkers stay and get on each other’s nerves.

I used to tell myself that my store, although smaller and dumpier than the competition, had lower prices, but my friend David says it’s not so. He and his wife did a comparison between the two stores in town, and mine came up the price loser. Maybe it’s that LOSER image that draws me to it anyway.

When we had a hurricane about 4 years ago, many homes and businesses lost power for days. I drove down the main street in our town and saw that my store had no power, but the super-store was gleaming and fully operational. I stopped in my store to buy something, anything, to show my support. Canned corn in hand, I walked past row upon row of open freezers, filled with thawing pizzas and Lean Cuisines that would eventually be tossed in the trash. That sealed it for me. Maybe my store should have had a better plan, a back-up generator for instance, but what underdog would?

I’m just so loyal. I want my store to succeed, and I’m willing to go without turkey if need be. Perhaps demanding a higher level of service would help it succeed, but I’ve never been much into tough love. Besides, I ask myself, should we always be able to get what we want?