"I buy comforters at Grocery Outlet”

"Paloma" by Layla Edwards

August 8 2006 Tuesday Tucson AZ

Waking up to this sticky morning. The rains for past two weeks and the damp and all these clouds have transformed our desert. It is hard to remember the barren arid scene out my window, now that all has been transformed into greenery. It has caused an incredible growing spurt. Plant life has emerged, from what was cement hard earth, but which is now moist hospitable soil.

Not only has new plant life emerged everywhere, but everything which was already living on desert has grown a foot. The horrible drought is over. So many unhappy trees for so long, are now in full glory, green and lush, growing and happy. The tree right out my window appears to have doubled in size. The Texas Rangers out my west window are filled with purple blossoms, and some kind of weed grass around them is now 3 feet tall, they are surrounded by this tall green weed grass. It is another world.

A fat morning dove is sitting on my telephone wire surveying its world. The weather forecast on TV showed this weather continuing all week, cloudy damp mornings, thunderstorms in afternoons, and I can look up and see all the very thick dense clouds in every direction. The morning dove is still there, she must like that spot. She’s plump as a partridge.

Of course if this hot sticky buggy weather goes on for a full week I will probably go cuckoo. I love what the moisture brings but I am used to another climate, crystal clear clarity, cool nights, dry spectacular days. There is no beauty like desert beauty, the vistas it allows, and acoustics like a concert hall, each note of the bird call crystal clear.

I am oddly content at this moment instead of buzzing like a hornet at all the discomfort of this crappy weather. There is something peaceful making about looking into my lush green backyard. I know others live in damp climates all the time but they have ocean breezes or lake breezes or mountain breezes to blow thru the hot sticky air.

Not one leaf is stirring in the world out my window. There is just a globe of moist air on everything, it is what accounts for our blistering afternoons. There is an addiction to the hot dry heat when you live on desert long enough, something which relaxes and brings sense of well being, a luxuriating in warmth. But we have only had 5 minutes of that during this endless hot humid summer.

We have waltzed into someone else’s climate, it has turned our desert into a garden but eventually we will want our own climate back.

Yesterday afternoon Bill offered to take me swimming, but we had waited too late. The skies were threatening. We saw lightning on the way to the pool, and when we arrived they had just closed the pool. So two hot sweaty confused people had to decide what to do now. I said “ok, take me to Grocery Outlet, let me look at their comforters on sale.” During the long sitting with Bill at table when we were trying to calm down from the morning's misadventure (Happy had collapsed from the heat on his morning walk with Bill, and had to be revived with bucket of ice water thrown over him), I had actually looked at all my junk mail for past week, everything which had arrived from stores saying what they have on sale.

In winter the heat only reaches one part of house, it does not reach the other half. My bedroom gets no heat and I like to sleep with windows open anyway, even tho desert nights are in the 20s. So solution is a lot of warm comforters. And between one thing and another the ones I had been using had bit the dust. For past week it had been very much on my mind that while winter comforters were still on sale, I had to buy a few to be prepared for the coming winter. All our bedclothes were really goners. I needed new sheets, new pillowcases, new pillows, and especially for warmth, comforters.

Grocery Outlet is where people shop who don’t want to pay the price at supermarket, and no way is it a normal market. They only get what suppliers happen to be overstocked with. For instance yesterday there were 100 huge bottles of blueberry pancake syrup. I happened to be out of maple syrup but they didn’t have maple syrup, just 100 bottles of blueberry. If I hadn’t been sitting at table with Bill for long time with nothing to do, I would not have looked at the flyer for Grocery Outlet. And to my surprise there were comforters. The flyer said these comforters sell for $50 and we are selling them for $25.

You wonder what kind of comforters are sold at store which sells blueberry pancake syrup at discount prices. But Grocery Outlet is in the same neighborhood as the Fort Lowell Pool. Macy’s had a comforter set on sale and it was a good sale and it came with two sets of sheets and pillow cases and I need sheets and pillow cases too. But I was nervous about going to the mall when thunderstorm was brewing because Happy is panicked by thunder.

So I said to Bill “take me to Grocery Outlet, they have comforters on sale, I will buy two, one for you and one for me.” I showed the picture to the check-out girl when I came in, and she said “I don’t think we have any green ones left but we might have blue ones, go to aisle two.”

At aisle two there was a young man taking stuff out of boxes and putting them on shelves. A box containing a huge jar of pickles that no one likes had arrived and he was putting all these huge jars of huge pickles on shelf. I showed him the picture of the comforter and he turned around and said “they are down there.” And sure enough on bottomshelf were the comforters. And there were green ones with the blue ones. I like the green one better.

Whether I lost my mind in the confusion of this hot sweaty traumatized day, I do not know. I selected two king size ones, even tho my bed is queen sized. They were $30 each instead of regular price, so half off, which I don’t know is such a great sale, Macy’s had half off too. They were not the thick comforter which was at Macy’s in their set, which included two sets of pillow cases and two sets of sheets. Of course that comforter was fiber-filled. These said down and feathers, altho looked very slender to me. The comforter cover was not cotton but micro-fiber. They were in a zip package and I didn’t ask him if I could take one out to look at it.

Instead I said “OK let me have green one and blue one, king size.” Then I saw two pillows in one package for 6 dollars and I said “let me have that too.” Then I saw package of sheets and pillow cases, and I said “my bed is actually queen size, is there any there to fit my bed?” They were all single or full so he said “let me look in back.” So I went over to shower foam gels and selected two for using after my swim. He came back and said they didn’t have the sheets in my size, Grocery Outlet had only gotten in twin and full.

But it was very pleasant to discuss with very young man with punk haircut about the comforters. I love the women who work in Robinson May bedding department, the same women are there but the store is now Macy’s, it does not have the same great stuff at the same great sales. And you would never get to have a heart-to-heart talk about comforters with a 19 year old young man with punk haircut. We had looked at them together, he told me what his mom likes, in fact he said his mom had bought one of them, which is when I thought “sold!” and decided to buy two.

He was such a nice young man. It took the whole edge off the awful afternoon. It was such a relief to be talking to sweet young man about which comforter his mom likes.

That’s probably why I bought both comforters. I bought 3 boxes of frozen french toast, and frozen pineapple whipped cream pie, and two boxes of cookies and went to check-out. They had a lot of good stuff at great prices at Grocery Outlet, but we had just done huge food shopping at Fry’s few days before, I didn’t need anything.

Selection is very easy there because the only thing their "bakery" department offered was 100 boxes of frozen whipped cream pineapple pie. And the only thing in their cookie dept. were the two types of cookies I bought. And the only thing in frozen food selection was frozen french toast. I hadn’t planned to buy one of those huge bottles of blueberry pancake syrup I had passed along the way, but after I bought 3 boxes of frozen french toast I knew I would need maple syrup to put on it, so I bought the huge blueberry pancake syrup.

And took this odd lot collection to check-out counter. Two comforters, two pillows, two shower gels (one lavender, one orange), 3 boxes of frozen french toast, one frozen whipped cream pineapple pie, and two kinds of cookies I had never tasted before. I put it all on my Discover Card.

And wheeled the cart to the truck. And thought “what have I done!!!!”