It’s 11:00 o’clock on a dazzling sunny Friday morning.  Sitting at the grocery store parking lot in my “loaner” car from the dealership while my vehicle is in repair. They just emailed me to advise the car is fixed and ready to be picked up.  I’ll collect it at Reid Bros in Arnprior after the grocery shopping. Meanwhile I entertain myself by watching the people who come and go. People of all ages and varied apparel. Some are driving automobiles; others have trucks.

Years ago – when living at the Mayfair Apartments on Metcalfe Street in centre town Ottawa – I never went to a franchise supermarket. Instead I frequented a small – but exotic – corner grocery emporium called Bousheys (I believe the family was of Lebanese descent) located on Elgin Street just south of Somerset St W across the street from Al’s Steakhouse. Everything at Bousheys was ideal for the local urbanites most of whom I wager lived alone and were satisfied with limited but exceptional products.

Many people – including especially families – have since graduated (or simply “shifted”) to Costco the likes of which I have found (from vicarious acquaintance through my sister and her husband for example) to be desirable although I recall having been in a Costco store only once. My abbreviated learning of the place is that normally the numbers of purchase exceed necessity for two people only. But the quality remains uniquely and convincingly compelling – even for such unfamiliar products as Roquefort cheese which I adore.

Being as I am now – a half century later – confined to the car as the chauffeur in the sprawling parking lot of a supermarket, my perception of food and the Universe has materially altered. Most people whom I regard from the comfort of my perch are clearly intent upon fulfilling a blunt and undramatic domestic obligation.  I am guessing that the model of home delivery has not yet overtaken the mundane formality of grocery shopping in the country.  Especially living as we do in a small town it is assured that a portion of one’s grocery outing will surround an unwitting measure of society with like minded friends and acquaintances. I won’t say it has the appeal of church but the exposure to community is valuable in a modest way.

It is now years since I undertook the enterprise of grocery shopping in any vernacular. I have however learned that the latest owners of the franchise (Your Independent Grocer) are experimenting with retail ventures capturing the evolving preferences of the upcoming younger masses. Change is manifest throughout society at every level, architecture, fur coats and plant-based food of every description. And when was the last time you had a cigar or a cigarette? Paddle boards and kayaks were unheard of years ago!

Occasionally I have the opportunity to chat with a shopper not in any urgency to conclude the task at hand. The grocery parking lot – not unlike the subterranean parking garage at home – has thus become a vital component of my limited society. It is an unavoidable consequence of evolution that social exposure commensurately decreases as age increases.

Already the grocery parking lot is festooned with evidence of the approaching Christmas season.  It is a digestible and tolerably affordable commercial industry reflective of the advent surplusage. I especially recall products like eggnog and tangerines and boughs and wreaths. This time of year – including Thanksgiving – is frequently excuse to buy fattening superlatives.

Though I haven’t the need to walk about the parking lot I nonetheless appreciate that there isn’t a layer of abounding snow. Already tomorrow threatens freezing rain. More and more I watch that I avoid the perils of weather, whether driving, cycling or walking. Otherwise the view from my desk over the nearby fields and river is totally gratifying.