This post is just to vent my thoughts about a day spent in Visalia. It might fall into the categories of “Why is She Bloviating Again?” or perhaps “Too Long, Didn’t Read”.

I headed down the hill to Visalia one morning and was tailgated around the lake. What does tailgating accomplish when there is no place to pass and the tailgatee obviously cannot drive any faster than the person in front of her? The tailgater ignored the first 2 passing lanes, and then roared around at the third one. Good riddance. (See you at the light at the four-way, if I’m careless and you are lucky.)

My first stop in town was one of those giant office stores to get some papers shredded. There are 2 on the same side of the same busy boulevard, and I picked the wrong one. “Wrong one”?, you may be asking. This one apparently had only one employee who was running his feet off. It also is the one where the customer has to stuff all the papers in a bin, rather than the employees just taking care of it.

I survived. That sort of situation with waiting and inconveniences is a chance to just look around and observe folks. I saw 2 other women near my age, and all three of us had our hair up in those claw-type clips. There was an obese man in a cart who felt the need to explain to the clerk (a second employee eventually emerged from a break room) that he had been a dedicated baseball player who played on winning teams until age 38. No one seemed put out by his need to explain why he requires a cart to get around; the dude was obviously very lonely.

There was a quick stop to unload a box of unnecessary items at Rescued Treasures, a thrift shop enterprise run by the Salvation Army. It was close to the wrong giant office store, so maybe that wasn’t the wrong one after all.

A kind and generous friend had given me a gift card to Sprouts, which is a fancy grocery store with bright lights, organic foods, and shockingly high prices. My hope was to buy raw milk, something I have been curious about for a long time. (My interest began when I met some people associated with an Arizona dairy called Fond Du Lac Farms.) Alas, it wasn’t meant to be because their shipment hadn’t arrived for the week. Another customer was waiting for it and he told me that he pays $17 a gallon. I would have been quite content with just a pint, but that curiosity will have to wait.

The prices almost made me need oxygen, and the lights were so bright that I wondered if sunglasses might be in order. I wandered around the store, reading labels, thinking, doing math, not wanting to waste the gift card on stupid stuff. Finally, I chose some lunch meat and a tray of sliced cheeses to share with friends on an upcoming outing, found some herbal tea that supposedly fights blood sugar levels, and a few mixed nuts that promised no peanuts (because they are just too pedestrian for Sprouts’ customers). The checkout was a self-serve with a friendly worker there to assist. The total for my four items was $29, which was $4 over the gift card. (I thought it was better to be over and pay some cash than to have to return to use up one dollar.)

Next, I headed out to find another new grocery store, about which I have heard great stuff for several years. Aldi’s is on the far south end of town, bringing to mind a threat in my childhood that “one day Visalia and Tulare will be merged into a single town.” Hasn’t happened yet but the growth is steady in that direction.

Aldi’s is known for charging 25¢ for its shopping carts, which gets returned to you when you put the cart back in the corral. (It locks into the cart behind it to spit your quarter back out.) I wandered around the store, comparing prices with those on a Winco receipt, trying to be smart about spending. I bumbled and fumbled through the self-checkout with its pushy computer voice telling me to either scan the next item or finish and pay. I kept telling “her” (it didn’t announce its preferred pronouns but the voice was female) to just hold on. Oddly enough, the total was also $29, but this time I got eleven items.

My grocery list was barely touched, so next I headed to Winco, my normal grocery store. I try to only shop every 6-7 weeks, with Trail Guy supplementing for dairy and produce at our local overpriced but convenient market (Let’s see. . . 1-1/2 hour driving and $15-20 for gas to save money? Nope.) It was a thrill to quickly find just what I needed at prices I was accustomed to paying. It had only been about 5 weeks, so the cart was manageable. Sometimes I almost need 2 carts when I wait too long between trips.

It was a massive relief to finally be on the freeway heading east into the mountains. The foothills are green, the sky was blue with puffy white clouds, and although there were a few tailgaters, I was heading home and didn’t care. Does it bother anyone else when people try to force you to pull behind a big rig so they can drive 80, not caring that you are quite happy to go 70, which is 5 miles over the speed limit, not caring that you don’t want to drop to 55 or 60 behind a big rig? What is wrong with people?

Here is my theory about what is wrong: people live in crowded conditions, with too many stores, too many choices, too high of prices, too much to do, too little quiet and privacy. It makes them anxious and cranky and impatient. Or, to quote Anne Lamott from her Twelve Truths of Life: “Everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy and scared.” 

P.S. Dennis Prager wrote about this topic several years ago: Imagine No Big Cities. (Thank you, DV!)