Past and Future

I drove to the nearby town of Poulsbo -- well, not too nearby, but relatively so, considering the great distances one must drive in this exurban setting to get anywhere.

I stopped at a Rite-Aid store in a large Poulsbo strip mall. Traffic was nasty and so was the weather -- cold, with a light mix of snow and hail coming down. Inside the store there were lots of empty shelves, wide open spaces, and untended registers, a sure sign that a business is dying. Rite-Aid has for years been the byword and poster child for the poorly managed and incompetently run large enterprise, and now it finally does seem to be truly shutting down.

I bought a pack of cigarettes, an operation which took no small expenditure of time and energy and required a bit of patience. But I was helped through it by the store's remnant of staff, bright, friendly young people who seemed to have little fear of our uncertain and insecure future.

Outside I saw an old man smoking and weeping in a parked car. An old woman with a nervous system disorder of some sort was gingerly exiting the store, trying very hard to walk without falling. I thought about offering to help her to her car, but was afraid that in the impersonal and paranoid environment of a strip mall parking lot she'd be afraid I wanted to rob her.

I then drove across the street to the large parking lot adjacent to the Central Market and entered another world. This is a large, thriving, high-end grocery outlet with an in-house bakery, several small eateries, and every kind of edible you can imagine, including an extensive bulk foods section. The decor and affect is cement floored, with rack-style shelving, and utilitarian in that affluent way that characterizes successes of the future. No pretentiousness, no cuteness, no rich-bitch curlicues, just solid, get-'er-done practicality. The joint was jumping.

I nosed around looking for deals, pushing one of those pint-size wheeled carts that all the better groceries have nowadays. Bought a box of wheat crackers, a little gourmet cheese, and went looking for produce. I asked a young lady in produce if there were any bagged oranges, and got a response that I didn't think was possible in a retail setting any more.

"I'm afraid not," she said, "but we have all kinds of loose oranges. Those behind you are organic. Wanna try one?"

She stopped what she was doing, unsheathed a jackknife and cut open a piece of fruit. It was a little under-ripe but otherwise very good, so I picked out three. Then she asked me if I'd had any of their honey tangerines, and went and got one of those for me to try. It was better than good -- a truly remarkable piece of fruit -- so I picked out half a dozen and bagged them, mentioning that it was my first time in the store and I appreciated the help.

I wasn't angling for a freebee or anything, but that's what I got. She marked the tangerine bag with a notation that it was gratis, and announced to a couple of other employees that I was a first-time customer.

Besides getting the royal treatment in a human, non-patronizing way, I noticed that much of what Central Market carries is conspicuously labeled "Produced Locally." This is the shape of America's future: there will be far fewer businesses and retail outlets, and those that survive will be selling things we need, not Chinese tchotchkes and flat-screen TV's. Agriculture, commerce, and most other business will be intensely local and uncompromisingly practical. There'll be no margin for error or silliness, and we will go back to being people, and forget about being "consumers."