As if requesting a straw with my water at restaurants isn’t quirky enough, my friend Sarah recently discovered I have another quirk.
I don’t shop online. Ever.
“How can this be?” she asked. “You’re an introvert. You can order groceries without ever leaving your home, yet you go to the grocery store every week!”
Sarah shops almost exclusively from her phone or computer. Food, household products, clothes, shoes and even undergarments are delivered to her door.
She does enjoy supporting local businesses by browsing at the small shops in the Garland District, and she buys most of her books at Wishing Tree Books in the South Perry neighborhood. But everything else, from broccoli to breath mints, comes from online vendors.
I am an introvert who has to extrovert a lot for work, so she’s right in assuming that given a choice, I’d rather avoid people-ing during non-work hours. However, scratch-cooking and meal planning relaxes me, and honestly, I don’t trust strangers to pick out my produce.
I’ve seen Instacart shoppers toss heads of lettuce into their gigantic trolleys without looking for rusty brown spots. I’ve watched as they shove packages of rib eyes into plastic bags without checking for moderate marbling.
To be fair, how could a stranger know how marbled I like my steak or how ripe I want my cantaloupe?
As I told another friend, “I don’t want anyone else thumping my melons. I can do it myself.”
She guffawed but knew exactly what I meant.
While I don’t exactly love loading up on toilet paper and bottled water at Costco, free samples are back! This is a great way to find out if you should indulge in that pricey Havarti or stick with the giant block of cheddar.
Of course, I always buy something there that’s not on my list. But gosh darn it, I needed that cute black-and-white skort and those huge fluffy beach towels, each one large enough to enfold two adults!
And my Fred Meyer forays often change up pre-planned menus. Recently, I found some gorgeous hothouse tomatoes (not on my list) and a sale on whole wheat pasta. I scrapped the planned grilled chicken and salad and decided to make pasta pomodoro.
Sure, I could have had tomatoes delivered via Instacart, but it was seeing their lush ripeness that made me want to cook with them.
Food aside, I can’t imagine ordering clothes online. For a writer, I’m pretty unimaginative. I can’t picture how a blouse or a pair of slacks will look on me by gazing at a photo.
I know you can return online purchases, but I don’t want the hassle. I’d rather grit my teeth, go to a store, and try things on in the fitting room.
But the most compelling reason I prefer to shop at brick-and-mortar stores is screen exhaustion. I spend five days a week at my desk in front of my computer. If I’m not at my computer, I’m on my phone, calling, texting or Googling. The last thing I want to do at the end of the day or on a weekend is spend more time online.
I don’t want to look at a picture of a peach. I want to feel its soft fuzz and weigh the heft of it in my hand. Instead of clicking on an image of a floral bouquet, I want to see what’s blooming at Trader Joe’s.
I guess I really do want to stop and smell the roses.
Pushing my chair away from my desk, grabbing my car keys and heading to the shops gives me a welcome disconnect from screen time.
Even better, it allows me to connect with my neighborhood and the people who live and work in it. A box left on my doorstep can’t do that.
Cindy Hval can be reached at dchval@juno.com. Hval is the author of “War Bonds: Love Stories from the Greatest Generation” (Casemate Publishers, 2015) available at Auntie’s Bookstore and bookstores nationwide.