My First Visit to The Fresh Market
Welcome to the grocery spa.
Today I visited The Fresh Market for the first time and saw how the fancy-people eat.
(I’m kidding, fancy-people. Sort of.)
Here are my first-timer observations:
I gave away my newbie-status by grabbing one of the clunky, regular-size shopping carts by the front door, only to realize everyone else had those stylish little rolling racks with the hand baskets in them.
They keep the lights dim, which makes it feel like some sort of intimate grocery spa.
Gourmet coffee odors permeate the entire store. I mean, spa.
I knocked an $8 box of okra chips (yes, that’s a thing) off a tasteful-but-precarious display, which caused the box to explode like a grenade and scatter crunchy okra fragments across the store.
I tried to pay for them. Apparently, fancy-people don’t pay for spilt okra.
The produce is near the front door, and everything was moderately more expensive than Publix produce. I was thinking I might leave the store empty-handed, but then I stumbled into the bakery section — and I quickly realized I had a moral obligation to buy one of every single bakery item. Or die trying.
Speaking of produce, you can buy a small box of special strawberries for $10. That’s the price of a dress in my world.
I made the mistake of arriving at 3pm on an empty stomach. But a got a free licorice sample the size of two thumbs. And tastier than thumbs.
I didn’t know there were that many types of olives in the world.
The deli worker carried on a lively conversation with me, but unfortunately I couldn’t process anything she said. Probably sensory overload. However, nodding, smiling, and laughing seemed to fulfill my end of the lengthy exchange. She seemed happy with my contributions to the conversation. Or maybe she’s paid to seem happy.
Buffalo-milk mozzarella is a thing.
You don’t unload your own shopping cart. The cashier does it for you. This is nice if you just ate two thumbs of licorice and your fingers are embarrassingly sticky.
Author’s note: This was written in 2019, to entertain a small group of my Facebook friends. I was not compensated in any way, except my two free thumbs of licorice.
