Feature Writer Lynne Tatum – Grocery Shopping While Visually Impaired
How do you handle grocery shopping? Does someone accompany you? Are your groceries delivered? Our shopping experience has been by degrees amusing and aggravating and do we ever have ridiculous and outrageous tales to tell. I bet you do as well. Let me tell you, we take the shop till you drop phrase to its literal meaning. Ouch! My feet are still smarting from our latest excursion.
Hey! I Thought We got…
As individuals with partial sight, we have mainly chosen to go it alone and brave grocery shopping on our own, only asking for assistance when we really feel it to be necessary. This has made for some near misses with regard to items happily plopped into our shopping cart. I recall the day Maria proudly waved an elongated box of something in front of my face, announcing that she had found the Ronzoni pasta we usually purchased. Shaking with uncontrollable giggles, I none-too-gently informed her that she had indeed grabbed a box of Reynolds Wrap and we would not be having that with pasta sauce that evening or any other. Now, in all fairness, Maria reads the Braille and I read the print. That is our system and we have stuck to it for years. It works. This was also during a time when my vision was much clearer. Another incident found us returning home from one of our marathon shopping sprees only to find that instead of the delicious pineapples, which we dearly love, we had purchased a plastic container of so-so honeydew melon slices. They were okay but not what we wanted. Of course, we did not have a clue until we forked a few slices into our mouths. “Hmm. What on earth is wrong with this pineapple?” we thought. Or how we wound up with chopped crabmeat rather than seafood salad is anyone’s guess. It took a while to figure out what on earth it was as we did not want to open it lest we offer the unsuspecting container to our neighbor. We have also been known to try new things simply because I can read the label of a fashion. Take our latest haul. I snatched up a bottle of something called Tari Cherry juice. I had no clue whether it was to be drunk or used as a cooking sauce. We tried it and, thankfully, it is a rather tart cherry drink. Perhaps it says “Tart Cherry.” I will take another look. To be fair, Maria has become very adept at choosing reliable items. Our tried (and mostly true) method has been to pick up the item, turning it around in order for Maria to try to identify it or I peer at it using my faithful Sherlock trick.
Sherlock Holmes Revisited
It is nothing short of amazing how a few new batteries can improve the lighting of a hand-held magnifier. Purchased for sixty-five dollars at the Lighthouse Low Vision Clinic, this would be my beloved extra-wide lighted visual aid. I have no idea where the magnified glasses have gone but I am rarely without my magical magnifier. Noticing that some print was not as bright as it could be, I bemoaned the fact that I really needed to do something about it. Why it took so long to rectify the situation, I cannot fathom. Most recently, a song I’ve sung for years entitled “This Little Light of Mine, I’m Gonna Let It Shine,” was never more true. I was able to read ninety-nine percent of the items we picked up for consideration into our ever-bulging cart. All I need is a cap and cape and I am ready to identify any label stuck under my nose. I have also noticed that I must hold the item in my hand in order to see it. It does me no good whatsoever to pass the magnifier over items at arms length.
My magnifier is a wonderful tool and I am lost without it, but I am constantly thwarted by the marketing departments for all the products we know and love. These hip (more than likely sighted) people are not happy unless they are changing the look of the labels. If the print is plain, large, and well contrasted against a reasonably-colored background, they sneer and look at it with a jaundiced eye and say, “Let’s change that. The buying public has been staring at that label for too long. Our product has been around for many years, let’s make it look fresh by decreasing the size of the font, change it to a modern color like lime green or sherbet pink and place it against a faint background such as lemon yellow. That way, it will stand out. If we can’t change the inside, we’ll change the outside.” I cannot even begin to tell you the hackles that are raised when I inevitably come across new labels. I then begin doing the magnifier hand dance to catch the best light and contrast in order to make out what kind of corn I am actually buying.
Shopper’s Assistants Or Not
Our favorite supermarket, Pathmark, used to offer shopper’s Assistants. Think of the little girl with the little curl. When it was good, it was very, very good and when it was bad, it was truly horrid! Imagine a helper who cannot read or who knows very little about the items in a store. Our assistants ranged from the outstanding to the outrageous. It takes half the time to shop with an able assistant who knows what they are doing and what you want. Breezing through the aisles, we gather our goods and get on out of there. Picture this: There we were, in the midst of asking the shopper to help us find this and that, and all of a sudden, we are standing there by ourselves and she has simply walked away. We supposed her shift was over and she had to really beat it out of there. We stood stunned for a moment. Luckily, our shopping was almost done and we were able to locate the remaining items, but we could not believe it. We never saw her again and if she saw us, she gave no hint. We were sick when we abruptly learned that they would no longer be offering this valuable service. It was akin to the feeling we experienced as we marched into Pathmark a few days ago only to find that the Chase mini-bank was no longer housed in the store. Even the ATM’s were gone. Seems the convenience of the customer is a minor consideration at this particular store.
Getting it all Home
As we must take a bus to this particular Pathmark, we do not go there often. This journey requires some planning. Not only does it take us hours to shop using our “pick up and peer” method, but then there’s the question of how do we get it all home. Do we opt to take a cab or pay for Pathmark’s delivery service? I think it’s fair to say that what I’m about to describe is a uniquely New York experience. On the occasions when we choose to take a cab, we leave the store proper with our shopping cart. Generally, a man comes up to us and asks if we would like a cab. We respond in the affirmative and he goes off. If he is fortunate enough to hail a yellow taxi, which has a fare meter, we smile with glee and satisfaction. We pile into the cab or help pack the trunk, depending on how many bags we have and we take off, tipping him for his efficiency. Lastly, we tip the driver for helping take the bags out of the trunk and load them onto a cart kept here at the apartment house. We have also taken advantage of entrepreneurial souls who have a large sport utility van who offer to take us home. We are then forced to make a painfully slow ride up to the roof in what I call the cattle car as it is a super huge elevator. Our goods are then loaded into the van and we drive off with very little stress, except for the stress I felt while riding the cattle car, I mean, elevator. At least we only tip one person for this trip.
One incident sticks out in my mind that I must relay. We came to know one of the drivers by name. As we entered Pathmark on this particular day he offered to wait for us and take us home. Smiling at our good fortune we shopped with happy hearts, believing that we would leave the store, load our groceries into his van and be on our way. Well, we were later to learn that this Pathmark is located in a, shall we say, drug-infested area. Out we came with our cart and there to greet us was a police officer who offered to hail a cab. We also noticed that the street was eerily quiet and there were indeed an inordinate amount of police officers milling about. We surmised we must have blindly stumbled into a sting of sorts. We have not seen that young man again. It is quite sad and disheartening as he was very kind to us.
The last option is for us to use Pathmark’s dubious (but fairly reliable) delivery service for which we pay six dollars over the cost of our groceries. This generally requires only that we count the bags in order to tell the person who will then relay the information to the driver. Additionally, we try to locate any ice cream or frozen goods that might melt before making it to our destination. I must admit that this is the most stressful as we never know when our groceries are going to arrive. This last delivery debacle found us waiting about four and a half hours. Several calls found that our groceries had indeed left the store at a reasonable time but had to share space with six other orders. We also learned that we are to give a three-hour waiting period for delivery. Maria was furious. The delivery guy placed our groceries in our foyer, turned and walked out without even waiting for a tip. Maria closed the door and did not look back. It was the first time ever that we did not tip a delivery person. I think we might take our chances with a cab. I suppose the one positive outcome was that the frozen shrimp were ready to eat and I was absolutely starving.
Our next Trek!
We have and might still ask my niece to accompany us. This is a pleasant affair but brings with it the always fun obstacle of scheduling, scheduling, scheduling. My Cousin has also offered to help with various visual tasks. I think I just might take her up on her offer to accompany us on our next grocery shopping outing. Independence is a wonderful and necessary aspect of our lives but can be a royal pain in the rear.
We do have a service that will deliver but it tends to be quite a bit more expensive and there are rules for delivery. Oh, how I wish Peapod delivered in our area. I was absolutely green with envy when I learned that residents in a certain part of New Zealand not only have grocery but butcher delivery. It remains to be seen what crazy experience we will have when next trying to stock our bare cupboards. Ah, you might ask if we do not have a grocery store in our neighborhood. We do but while it is near, the selection is not as wide and the prices are higher. We have returned to it, though, as it does not offer the stress and unpredictable happenings of our favorite super store uptown. Wish us luck on our next venture.
Well, Lynne strikes again. Our V8 splash drink turned out to be of the diet variety. I wonder if our neighbor would like it?