It's late afternoon and feels even later in this early winter time when the sun is going to set in less than an hour and most people are still working in their offices. Still, there are lots of people not working in offices. Some of them can be found packing into the parking lot of this Costco in Southern Connecticut. They are mostly older people, getting huge packs of goodies that would last them the rest of their lives, it appears. There are hardly any young people. In fact, the only young people you fill find are lifting and pushing heavy crates of the massively big items in this converted warehouse. When you enter, the first thing you notice before the high ceilings of the ex-warehouse is a huge fence. That, and the horde of people rifling through piles of volume discounted items make this place feel a bit like a zoo. And at this time of the day the animals are always treated to a lot of free food, samples to entice a few to actually buy what they hadn't intended on getting when entering the cage. There's often so much free food that you can just come here for lunch.
The kind of people who come here are not usually your elegant type. They are here to find decent brands and quality items for a bargain, as long as you have room for the giant boxes of cereal or packs of flour heavier than you, well, for many people who are overweight here that might not be the case. There's something exhilarating about finding your favorite pasta for a fraction of the unit cost you'd find at your local super market. You don't even need to do the math; every price has a unit price on it and even if you can't possibly remember how much a normal size pound of sugar costs at your local supermarket, this 25-pound pack must be cheaper. Hence the mentality of most of the people here are also quite uniform.
But every now and then you find some outlier individuals who show up for some reason you can't quite fathom. Look at the lady pushing the huge cart out of the cereal isle. Her cart is jam packed with huge boxes and bags, like everyone else. But there's something different about her. Her hair seems like it was done by a specialist and not just brushed haphazardly this afternoon when she finally woke up, like a lot of hairdos you find covering the heads of price comparers here. She's wearing a black coat that fit her body rather nicely, not pretentious but certainly not from the here or the coat outlet down the street. Her makeup, like her hair, reveals that some thought process had been put into it, and like her coat, shows no gaudiness and hunger for attention. But her face, even without makeup, already stands out. There's something slightly foreign about her. She's in her late thirties, judging from the slight lines around the corners of her eyes. But it's her eyes that suggest she isn't from the same suburban neighborhoods where most of the animals have come from. There are thoughts in her eyes, not troubled ones, just thoughts originating from what you can instantly tell an active mind, as opposed to the lazy ones behind the eyes of the creatures that are shuffling around her and not noticing her the way you, also one with discerning eyes, could see.
The lady in the black coat and thoughtful eyes stops next to one of the free food sample stands that is manned, as always, by some middle age or older lady repeating some mantra either indicating how easy the food is to make or what a bargain you are getting. She looks at the food, then at the people grabbing it, then at their faces as they scoff down the unhealthy item. She doesn't smile but her eyes show some amusement. You walk towards her, but not betraying any clue that you are doing so to take a closer look at her. The interesting subject can't know that she's actually being observed by one in hundreds of bargain hunters milling around her.
You can see that the number of people standing in front of the free sample station is increasing rapidly. You walk over and you realize that it's chocolate truffles. They had just opened up a new box to make samples from and the flies gather almost instantly around the rotten fruit. The lady, a dark skin woman speaking with an African accent, explained that it's part of the gourmet selection of Costco, and it's less than half the price of what you would pay in the big shopping mall at the end of this shopping strip. It doesn't matter that these people mostly likely can't tell the difference between this and their Snickers bar, it only mattered that it was so cheap: free! You don't see anyone actually grabbing that gigantic box of chocolate; you only see people grabbing the free samples, some actually grab more than one. You notice too that your lady is watching the process very intently. You are close enough now to see that her eyebrows are thin and dark. Her eyes are piercing ambers as if she were a cat, watching mice munching off a piece of cheese on the table. You can smell her perfume, and it definitely isn't one of the huge liter bottles from near the checkout. She is wearing a silk scarf, seems very European, the scarf and how it makes her look. Her hair is as dark as her pupils. It must be dyed, but it makes her look ever more mysterious.
Yet, you can't help but notice that she has her hands on the cart, the cart that reminds the world that she's shopping at this zoo of volume discount, wholesale lovers. You want to convince yourself that she isn't one of them. You want to understand why she is here, pushing her huge load of 24-pack paper towels, 20-pack napkins, 30-pack bathroom tissues, two gigantic boxes of Cheerios, a dual-pack of dish washing liquid. There's also a huge box of grapes and a bag of twenty lemons. If God gave you twenty lemons, you really will make lemonade? You wonder.
She notices that you are looking at her cart, and she asks, "That's a small turkey you have there." You look up in surprise. The voyeur is being watched and now being talked to. "Just for two people," you say, almost apologetically, though she probably doesn't know what you might be apologizing. You look at her eyes and feel the awe of her dissection of your existence in front of her. You mutter nervously, "You got a lot to clean or something?" She inspects her huge boxes and smiles, "Yes, but you don't?"
"No, but...." "But" nothing. There's not much to say.
"You are only getting this turkey, it seems."
Her accent is unfathomable. Which country is she from? You are racking your brain but you can't ask her. You are still recovering from being interrogated first when all this time, this whole hour, you have wanted to ask her questions.
"Well.... I don't see anything else I want."
"Maybe some chocolate?"
"Oh no...."
She starts to push her cart past you and you get nervous. It's your last chance to ask her why in the world a lady like her is waltzing around this madness. She is now right in front of you, about to continue her day. You can see the lines on her face. You can see the lines on her hands, her fingers. She's older than you thought, just a little older. And she opens her mouth slightly, her lips parting just enough for sound to be released.
"You've been following me since you saw me walk when you got the turkey," she says, almost playfully, but the accusation is very sobering, nothing funny.
"I...." Your heart is racing. You're caught. The zoo is being sucked into a hurricane as it spins faster and faster around you. She is so close to you that you can see how white her teeth are, but obviously not done by those year-supply of tooth whitening strips on the last aisle along with the gallons of mouthwash. Her amber eyes are swallowing you in like the engines of a Boeing 747. She is reading the lines, the bumps, the details of your face, noticing even the sweat pores on your nose that are oozing out nervousness. But her smile tells a part of you, behind all your layers of defensiveness and fear, that she is no one to be afraid of. While the crowd thins out as quickly as it gathered the moment the last free truffle got gobbled up, you feel a bit more relaxed. You are invited to read her lines, her face, her stories on her skin. You see the details you couldn't catch or even thought about reading when you were following her, inspecting her, wondering who she could be, what sort of undersea fish she could be flapping among the pedestrian sardines that are crammed in here.
"Don't you see, I am not that different from you, and if you look at these people carefully, young or old, if you can see the details that mark their uniqueness, you will see how much we are all the same."
You want to know if she's a specialist in some field with a big Latin name. Maybe she's a psychologist, a sociologist? Her skin is full of details, full of stories, but then suddenly, she is so familiar, so much the same.
She smiles one more time and says, "Happy Thanksgiving." And she walks away. You don't notice which aisle she is going to now, or maybe she is heading to the checkout. You are just standing there, like some people are near you, except that you aren't waiting for the next batch of chocolate truffles. You are trying to get a grip on yourself.
