thank you, come again!
So on the ground floor of my high-rise apartment building there is a store. It's hidden down a hallway to the right. You can't see it from the pool area. You can't see it from the mail area. You can't see it from the lobby...period. Mike found it while exploring one day after already living here for a few months.
It's like a mini grocery store, although the prices are marked up a little. Milk is never on sale. Basic toiletries, cleaning items, food, beer, wine, booze, and a limited amount of very very simple produce.
It was merely convenient for quite some time. I would occasionally run down and grab something to drink if there was nothing in the fridge. If I was cooking and ran out of eggs, it was not a problem. Mike somehow never frequented it much, probably because he could just as easily hop in his car and I don't have that option.
Once we decided to move I stopped grocery shopping. Usually Mike and I would make joint trips to Safeway, but with access to his car becoming more limited once he started staying with his Mom more and the knowledge that I couldn't store too much since I probably wouldn't be living here long, it made no sense to keep the fridge stocked full. So basically, aside from occasionally hijacking a friend to take me to Safeway, I have been living on minimal groceries from downstairs, Buca food, and eating out. If I had known at the time how long exactly I'd spend alone in this apartment I would have maintained the grocery shopping, but oh well.
Since then my use of the store downstairs has been dependent, yet sporadic. And the items I buy are odd, but generally the same. Same beverages. Occasional ice cream. Cereal. Milk, although this I have to limit cause it's so freakin expensive. Butter sometimes. Mac and cheese, along with other prepackaged crap food. And booze. Or rather, beer and wine. Okay, mostly wine. A lot of wine, really. Not that I'm buying a bottle every day. I actually don't drink that much right now. But I still swear by a glass of wine at night.
There are only three employees in the store. A Pakistani father and son, which alternate shifts during the week. And a 60-something hippie white dude during the weekend, but very rarely. The father and son are really not friendly, the son especially. It took forever for the father to warm up enough to say hi at all. But now that I visit the store usually once a day to once every other day, he'll smile. The son, not so much. But the son, who is in his younger twenties, witnesses me buying alcohol every time. For a while it was a joke (at least to me), it went from uncomfortable to awkward. (Probably around the time I bought a fifth of vodka about two months ago. The first and only time I've bought hard liquor down there.) Tonight I think I just crossed the line into socially unacceptable. I bought a 1.5 liter of Shiraz (what? it was cheap!), some bleach, and some cereal. And, yet again without any facial expression whatsoever, he rang me up and glared at me. The judgment was palpable.
I swear, a 1.5 liter of wine will last me a long time. Or, you know, at least the weekend.
It's like a mini grocery store, although the prices are marked up a little. Milk is never on sale. Basic toiletries, cleaning items, food, beer, wine, booze, and a limited amount of very very simple produce.
It was merely convenient for quite some time. I would occasionally run down and grab something to drink if there was nothing in the fridge. If I was cooking and ran out of eggs, it was not a problem. Mike somehow never frequented it much, probably because he could just as easily hop in his car and I don't have that option.
Once we decided to move I stopped grocery shopping. Usually Mike and I would make joint trips to Safeway, but with access to his car becoming more limited once he started staying with his Mom more and the knowledge that I couldn't store too much since I probably wouldn't be living here long, it made no sense to keep the fridge stocked full. So basically, aside from occasionally hijacking a friend to take me to Safeway, I have been living on minimal groceries from downstairs, Buca food, and eating out. If I had known at the time how long exactly I'd spend alone in this apartment I would have maintained the grocery shopping, but oh well.
Since then my use of the store downstairs has been dependent, yet sporadic. And the items I buy are odd, but generally the same. Same beverages. Occasional ice cream. Cereal. Milk, although this I have to limit cause it's so freakin expensive. Butter sometimes. Mac and cheese, along with other prepackaged crap food. And booze. Or rather, beer and wine. Okay, mostly wine. A lot of wine, really. Not that I'm buying a bottle every day. I actually don't drink that much right now. But I still swear by a glass of wine at night.
There are only three employees in the store. A Pakistani father and son, which alternate shifts during the week. And a 60-something hippie white dude during the weekend, but very rarely. The father and son are really not friendly, the son especially. It took forever for the father to warm up enough to say hi at all. But now that I visit the store usually once a day to once every other day, he'll smile. The son, not so much. But the son, who is in his younger twenties, witnesses me buying alcohol every time. For a while it was a joke (at least to me), it went from uncomfortable to awkward. (Probably around the time I bought a fifth of vodka about two months ago. The first and only time I've bought hard liquor down there.) Tonight I think I just crossed the line into socially unacceptable. I bought a 1.5 liter of Shiraz (what? it was cheap!), some bleach, and some cereal. And, yet again without any facial expression whatsoever, he rang me up and glared at me. The judgment was palpable.
I swear, a 1.5 liter of wine will last me a long time. Or, you know, at least the weekend.