The Supermarket

Marcovaldo was taking his family out for a walk. Since they had no money, their entertainment was to watch others go shopping [ ... ] watching was always lovely, especially if you took a turn around the supermarket.

… Marcovaldo, on entering [...] took a cart; his wife, another; and his four children took one each. And so they marched in procession, their carts before them, among counters piled high with mountains of good things to eat, pointing out to one another the salamis and the cheeses, naming them, as if in a crowd they had recognized the faces of friends, or acquaintances, anyway.

“Pàpa, can we take this, at least?” the children asked every minute.

“No, hands off! Mustn’t touch,” Marcovaldo said, remembering that, at the end of this stroll, the check-out girl was waiting, to total up the sum.

“Then why is that lady taking one?” they insisted, seeing all these good housewives who, having come in to buy only a few carrots and a bunch of celery, couldn’t resist the sight of a pyramid of jars and plonk plonk plonk! with a partly absent and partly resigned movement, they sent cans of tomatoes, peaches, anchovies, thudding into their carts.

In other words, if your cart is empty and the others are full you can hold out only so long: then you’re overwhelmed by envy, heartbreak, and you can’t stand it. So Marcovaldo, having told his wife and children not to touch anything, made a rapid turn at one of the intersections, eluded his family’s gaze, and, having taken a box of dates from a shelf, put it in his cart. He wanted only to experience the pleasure of pushing it around for ten minutes, displaying his purchases like everyone else, and then replace it where he had taken it. This box, plus a red bottle of ketchup and a package of coffee and a blue pack of spaghetti. Marcovaldo was sure that, restraining himself for at least a quarter of an hour, and without spending a cent, he could savor the joy of those who know how to choose the product. But if the children were to see him, that would spell trouble! They would immediately start irritating him and God only knows the confusion that would lead to!

Marcovaldo tried to cover his tracks, moving along a zig-zag course through the departments, now following busy maidservants, now be-furred ladies. And as one or the other extended her hand to select a fragrant yellow squash or a box of triangular processed cheeses, he would imitate her. The loudspeakers were broadcasting gay little tunes: the consumers moved or paused, following the rhythm, and at the right moment they stretched out their arms, picked up an object and set it in their baskets, all to the sound of music.

Marcovaldo’s cart was now filled with merchandise; his footsteps led him into the less frequented departments, where products with more and more undecipherable names were sealed in boxes with pictures from which it was not clear whether these were fertilizer for lettuce or lettuce seeds or actual lettuce or poison for lettuce-caterpillars or feed to attract the birds that eat those caterpillars or else seasoning for lettuce or for the roasted birds. In any case, Marcovaldo took two or three boxes.

Ans so he was proceeding between two high hedges of shelves. All at once the aisle ended and there was a long space, empty and deserted, with neon lights that made the tiles gleam. Marcovaldo was there, alone with his cart full of things, and at the end of that empty space there was the exit with the cash-desk.

His first instinct was to break into a run, head down, pushing the cart before him like a tank, to escape from the supermarket with his booty before the check-out girl could give the alarm. But at that moment, from a nearby aisle, another cart appeared, even more loaded than his, and the person pushing it was his wife, Domitilla. And from somewhere else, yet another emerged, and Filippetto was pushing it with all his strength. At this area the aisles of many departments converged, and from each opening one of Marcovaldo’s children appeared, all pushing carts laden like freighters. Each had had the same idea, and now, meeting, they realized they had assembled a complete sampling of all the supermarket’s possibilities. “Papà, are we rich then?” Michelino asked. “Will we have food to eat for a year?”

“Go back! Hurry! Get away from the desk!” Marcovaldo cried, doing an about-face and hiding , himsself and his victuals, behind the counters; and he began to dash, bent double as if under enemy fire, to become lost once more among the various departments. A rumble resounded behind him; he turned and saw the whole family, galloping at his heels, pushing their carts in line, like a train. [ ... ]

I’m not going to tell you how it ends. Buy the book! It’s Marcovaldo: or the seasons in the city, by Italo Calvino (of course!); the above is taken from the chapter, Marcovaldo at the supermarket.

I do my weekly grocery shopping at just such an enormous supermarket and almost every week I see an elderly couple pushing a cart around, up and down, all the aisles without ever putting anything in the cart. All of the employees seem to know them, so finally I asked what they were doing. They tell me that the couple do this every day for exercise. But why do they need to push an empty cart? Nobody knows. Also, why do they (and all those mall-walkers doing the same thing) want to walk inside a store and not outdoors? It’s safe! It’s clean! It’s dry! It’s flat! No wonder so many people don’t care about Nature. They’ve never seen it.

-Julie

http://www.unrealnature.com/