THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 8, 1994 TAG: 9407070188
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: OVER EASY
SOURCE: Jo-Ann Clegg
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
At 2:31 last Tuesday afternoon I bolted down aisle three of my neighborhood supermarket, sent my cart flying into a display of gourmet coffees and yelled ``Let me out of here, I can't find anything.''
At least I think it was aisle three and I think it was coffee. With what's been going on in that store who could tell?
``Just ignore her,'' I heard a store employee tell some suited gentlemen who had ventured out on an inspection tour from corporate headquarters. ``We all know that Mrs. Clegg doesn't take well to change.''
Boy, is that an understatement.
I have been shopping at that same supermarket for 17 years now, ever since it opened its doors back when refrigerators were avocado, my kids lived at home and Kempsville had more strawberry fields than gas stations.
I saw the store's walls fall in when a wind of questionable origin sailed through the neighborhood while the shopping center was still under construction.
I saw people arrive on foot, on skis, in four-wheel drive vehicles and even on horseback when it was the only open store for miles around during the blizzard of '80.
I have dragged myself into the store at 10 in the evening to buy milk for breakfast and at 6 in the morning when the house was full of weekend guests and the coffee canister was empty.
I have made friends with the checkers, exchanged enough gossip to fill a small tabloid and chewed out ignoramuses who tried to barge into the express line with 32 items, starter checks and no I.D.
I even rode my bike through the front door once. It was a move which did not endear me to the manager but delighted an elderly gentleman who jumped up from the park bench at the front of the store and yelled, ``Go to it, Gal!''
I have left my groceries in the parking lot a dozen times and my coupon collection in the shopping cart on at least 20 occasions. I've also driven off and left my purse behind more times that I've ever admitted to Bill.
Each time I've retrieved my belongings intact, a fine testimony to both the store's employees and my Kempsville neighbors.
Over the years I have probably spent at least $50,000 at the market, cashed checks for twice that much and read more sleazy checkout line tabloids than I care to admit.
I've bought enough milk to send a dairy farmer, his wife and a good size herd of Golden Guernseys around the world on the QEII, enough coffee to let Juan Valdez trade in his burro for a Land Rover and enough poultry to make Frank Perdue a happy man.
I have been able to do all of this pretty much with my eyes closed. An imprint of the store layout was so indelibly inscribed on my brain that when I was confined to the house last fall I was able to give Bill the grocery list in aisle-by-aisle order.
A month ago all of that started to change.
``Pardon our dust, we're remodeling,'' the sign in the window said.
Dust I could pardon. Messing with the store layout was something else.
In their quest to make the store lighter, brighter and more shopper-friendly, the powers that be have hidden everything.
``Food items to the right, non-food to the left. It makes it a lot easier to find what you want,'' an assistant manager told me proudly.
``That's easy for you to say,'' I told him. ``I'm used to the canned vegetables being on one side of the store and the canned fruit on the other. I consider putting the peanut butter and jelly on the bread aisle a stroke of pure genius. Putting the seltzer next to the drain cleaner I'm not so sure about.''
He looked puzzled. ``We never had it next to the drain cleaner,'' he said. ``Oops, wrong store,'' I muttered.
Anyway, after running from the store and leaving all those corporate types shaking their heads, I found myself in the parking lot with a major problem. I still needed groceries. I also needed to get Bill's mother whom I had left sitting at the front of the store.
I swallowed my pride, went back in, spent another hour finding six items and retrieved my mother-in-law.
Behind me I left two packages of Fruit Roll-ups, a jar of baby food and a small pack of disposable diapers. Still trying to shop by touch I had thought they were breakfast bars, pimentos and table napkins.
What they really were was proof positive that I'd never be able to shop by memory and touch again. by CNB