Monday, June 22, 2020

The man in front of me in the supermarket line spins around abruptly and drops to the floor. I think at first that he’s had some sort of attack. He hasn’t. A red pepper has broken loose from a bag on the conveyor belt. He catches it on the first bounce, before it can roll away. As he stands, I hear a smash and a shout. The woman in front of him freezes. The bottom of the bag she is carrying has torn. A bottle of olive oil has hit the floor and shattered. It’s a bad day for bags. The man drops to the ground again. He picks up the rest of her fallen items before the spreading pool of oil reaches them. The cashier gets on the intercom. “Cleaning worker to lane number nine, please, cleaning worker to lane nine.” The woman’s left sandal has gotten oily. The cashier hands her a roll of paper towels and places a bottle of hand sanitizer where she can reach it. I finish putting my groceries on the conveyor belt. The woman looks up at me sheepishly. I tell her that it’s OK, that I’m not in a hurry. I say it in English. I heard her speaking on her phone a few minutes earlier, when we were both in the rice aisle. She speaks English with an accent like mine. She may even be from New Jersey. The cashier first rings up the man with the peppers, then me. The cleaner is gone by the time I’m done. The floor at the end of the line is still slippery. I step carefully, but I still get some oil on my shoes. I slide along the tile floor of the mall, then head out to the bus.