Grocery Boy Grown

 My mother always had her groceries delivered. She did go to the store to chose the items and then had the groceries delivered later. The delivery chap was always a young boy or youth who came into one's house and put them on the kitchen table. In those days, the "island" was a table called a work table because that's usually where the food prep took place. Sometimes, as in our house, it was a kind of wooden butcher block effort with drawers under the top, for cutlery and large knives. When one of Mom's friends one  came over to visit during the day, they perched on the one  kitchen stool, a plain worn wooden thing and sipped coffee made on the stove top, not in a cute machine with little pods. The visitors chatted with Mom and she prepared dishes or stirred up the baking. The coffee pot sat on the stove all day after perking but the coffee was the strongest and  best in the world. So was the conversation. It was without cell phone interruption. But that was then, and this is now. Today my groceries came delivered by a man whose job it is to spend the day trucking groceries to online shoppers. I love that service. Unlike some of my pals, I don't need to go to the supermarket to squeeze the tomatoes or socialize over the yams. My shoppers do a great job because they know quality when they see it - they should, they live a good part of their lives in the store that is my online market. What surprised me enormously, is that my store is now bagless. It seems a very responsible matter to go bagless, but I have to admit, I miss both the paper and the plastic bags. I always recycled them to put my garbage in whether plastic or paper. But that's the way the world is and it must know better than I do. It's far older than I am. I go out as seldom as I can manage. I love the natural world, not cement, tar and dodging people and bikes. The grocery chap came to my door with his bins of tins and boxes and packages, and lo and behold, they looked exactly like you see on the store shelves. The tuna tin was just that. The frozen packages dripped water drops onto my hallway bench and floor. The cold items were also dripping. The raw chicken nakedness was behind one layer of plastic, the cracker boxes were a bit wet from the condensation. Ah, how the world has changed but having groceries delivered hadn't changed all that much other than the age of the chap who brings them. He doesn't have time to visit but he is friendly and knows my name. It's a pleasant rarity to have someone call out your name when you are "served". There are times when I get the fish eye from some compatriots, having my groceries delivered. But hey, I say, if I catch the look, you take you car out using gas and wear and tear. You have to find the right parking spot which can be stressful. Then, you go find a big heavy basket and push it through aisles dodging other carts, to pick up mostly the same old things you do every single time. Next, wait in line or at the computer to check out. Lug it all to your car and put it in the trunk, go home, take it out and lug it to your house and put it on your shelves. That's a lot of effort. Oh, you like the social aspects? What would those be? Well, Fish Eye, I order my groceries at my computer with a cup of coffee in hand. They come on the day and time I request. It costs me less than five dollars for Tony to bring them out of his truck, and arrive at my door. I put the groceries away. Done. Want to give me the fish eye again? It might seem merely an "old lady" thing to do in your book, but hey, when you work it all out, seems to me pretty up-to-date. Old isn't helpless, it's learning how to make life better. And Tony, my grocery delivery man is part of "better". 

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