stereotypical single woman

I grew up in Grand Rapids, one of the most suburban areas I’ve ever known. I don’t mean this in a derogatory way. There’s something very safe, quaint, and friendly about the suburbs. Given all the other situations I could have been brought up in I consider it to be good place for a kid to grow up. Safe, if homogeneous. It also that meant as I moved around the country it would be easy to find familiar stores, because that’s all we knew. Big box retailers, malls, and supermarkets supplied us with everything we needed in that city.

But now I live in Detroit. Big box retailers don’t like Detroit. So if I want to go to a Meijer I need to go to the suburbs. This had never been a big deal before, after all, it was easy enough to plan my weekly grocery shopping around my work schedule in Troy. But now I’m working in Detroit (and thankfully only filling up my gas tank once a month as opposed to twice a week), so, my suburban upbringing had me traveling out to the burbs once a week to “do my shopping.”

But lately I’ve noticed that even Meijer’s prices have gotten higher and higher on produce, which is the staple of my diet. And the quality has been seriously lacking. It’s spring. I want salads. And fruit. And juice. But I’d have to take out another student loan just to buy the gas to get out there, get the produce (which, let’s face it, doesn’t stay fresh a full week, so I’m going out to the burbs at least twice a week), and get home. So I’ve been nosing around local retailers* lately.

I’ve always known about the Eastern Market. I live less than a mile away. But, well, I’m a girl from the ‘burbs. I grew up with consistency, muzak, air conditioning, and pretty lighting from my retailers. I don’t like admitting it, but the area, the newness, the uniqueness, it scared me a little. I kept begging my friends and family, please, come visit me, we’ll go, check it out.  Just so that I don’t have to go on my own the first time. I can be such a chickenshit at times. Which would be why it wasn’t until today, with my mom and sister, that I visited for the first time.

My fears were unfounded. The produce is better than in the burbs. Not exactly cheaper, but if you factor in the fact I can walk there, it’s worth it. There’s so many flowers to be seen that it makes me wish even harder for a house with a garden. And the people watching is so spectacular that it has to be experienced to be believed. I’m going to be doing most of my shopping there this summer.

* not to knock the place, after all, Meijer is a local retailer (particularly in Grand Rapids.) They buy most of their produce from the farms in the area around their stores. My family knows many farmers that depend on them as their biggest customer. So shopping there is supporting the local economy. Plus, they’re union. Both points makes them vastly superior to their biggest local competition, a national chain I despise so much I won’t even link to it.