Grocery Store Disney Land

I had an "interesting" experience Saturday. We are on our yearly vacation to my hometown (Wilmington, NC). And I was running errands. I stopped by a grocery store that I used many years ago when we still lived here. It has been updated several times. This last update was a doozy.

As I walked into the store, I took in the strange wooden siding in the front in place of the usual picture glass entry, and the smiling greeter at the door cooking brats on a grill. I am not sure, but I think he was wearing a checkered shirt and cowboy hat. I say I am not sure, because I didn't particularly notice at the time, but think that based on what happened over the next few minutes.

I walked in and found the new interior very bright and airy. Nice. Then I noticed a few echoes of a barn motiff...a hay bale here. A scarecrow there. As I walked toward the back I began to notice a metallic sound. Bank, clonk, bank, clonk. Whoosh. I looked around wondering if a train was at the depot, or if they were still renovating the back end. I noticed a huge working gears decorative border above the meat counter and realized it was from there. A sort of Country Bear Jamboree kind of thing. I didn't see any singing bears though. Maybe they only came out on the hour. I was thinking to myself that I could not have worked here with that racket constantly in the background. How odd. But the oddness was not finished yet.

As I walked around I got busy searching for the item I went in to purchase and made my way to the front to pay. As I rounded the corner, I noticed a 6 foot chicken accompanied by his handlers. Not trying to act amazed like the out of town rube that I was, I continued to the register. I heard behind me pieces of their conversation.  "Not scary", was one phrase I specifically heard, and I thought perhaps there might be a toddler near by, but when I looked around only the adult employees were there and then, as if on cue with my glance, they began a loud chant about a hoedown and something about your hometown store,  and finished up with an enthusiastic YEEE HAA! I was almost the only customer in the store at the moment, so I assume it was on my behalf. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to square dance on my way out of the store or not, so I made a quit beeline for the door, past the lady in the balloon and corn hole corral.

I left wondering when it became a thing to turn grocery shopping into an experience. In my day you were lucky to get a free cookie or balloon for your kid at the more upscale stores. Now it has become a ADHD paradise. A day in disneyland while you shopped for bologna and milk.

Yeeee Haaaa!