la grocería

Ago lives by structure.   He has his set schedule and it cannot be changed.  He wakes up at 4 am goes to bed at 8 pm.  Between those hours, I assume he is organizing his vegetables, inventoring his vitamins and preparing his meals (those take longer than you'd expect).  But all of that can be shuffled around.  What can't be changed, these are set in stone, are our trips to la grocería.  I honestly think that these are the highlights of his week (he knows that if he wants to go somewhere else i'll take him, but it's always the same places).  We usually hit up two stores twice a week.  He does not need to go twice a week, once a week is sufficient, but these are not just trips to get the perishables, these are also social events.  He gets soooooo excited, the smile on his face lights up the car.  When we go to the grocery store, we know everyone...and they know us.  We always go early to avoid the crowd, before 9 am, 8:30 if i'm up early enough; I recommend this.  It makes a difference to go in the morning, the produce is fresh, presentation aesthetically appeasing, and the selection is better (omg! I am too young for this).  Anyways, we get there before the crowd, so i'm pretty sure that the the guys who work in the departments that we frequent (produce) know us well.  

But what really makes the difference are the people at the check-out.  We have cashiers who open registers just for us, converse with us, throughout the time i've been chaufferring my grandfather, I have gotten to know the employees at the grocery stores.  I even know the ages of their kids and if they're trouble makers!  Even though all we go to are the chain supermarkets, because that is really all there is near us, it feels like a neighborhood grocery store.  I have stories about some of the employees we have encountered, especially the sackers....that's another post.  Ohhhhh....Ago has his sacker amgio, I'll just call him L.  He is a character!  Even they don't speak a word of the same language, they are from the same generation so they have this kind of unspoken language.  He deserves his own post.  Next time.