I Did Not See You In The Canned Bean Aisle, And You're Welcome

Anyone who has bought food in a neighborhood grocery store knows the moment. You round the end of an aisle and see someone you know. Not well. Just enough. If neither party acts, what follows is a four-minute exchange about the weather that benefits no one.¹

I propose we stop pretending this is friendship. I propose instead that we pretend not to see each other, which is at least honest about the pretending.

The technique is simple. On sighting the acquaintance, turn to the nearest shelf and develop a sudden, scholarly interest in its contents. I once spent eleven minutes comparing two cans of kidney beans that I now believe were identical.² The acquaintance, a person of good faith, does the same with the paper towels. Neither party is harmed. Both are spared.

"I once read the full ingredients panel of a soup to avoid my former landlord," said Marjorie Tull, 58, of Dayton, Ohio. "I now know what xanthan gum is. I would do it again."

Should the acquaintance follow you into the next aisle, escalation is warranted. Last Tuesday I abandoned a full cart beside the frozen peas and left through the garden center.³ Some will call this wasteful. I call it a sacrifice made on behalf of another person's afternoon.

In fairness to the weather, which bears the brunt of these conversations and is rarely consulted, I contacted it for comment. It had not responded by deadline. It was, at the time, overcast and somewhat accusatory.

The lasting solution is to shop only at 2 a.m., when the store holds no one but a man restocking yogurt who has also agreed not to see me.⁴

"It works for both of us," said that man, Gil Ostrander, 34, of Kettering, Ohio. "He does need to stop asking me to initial things."

This brings me to policy. I propose that a single wordless nod, exchanged in the cereal aisle, be recognized in law as a complete friendship, with all attendant rights and obligations, and that no further contact be required for the remainder of either party's natural life. I have drafted the legislation. I have nodded at my representative's office from across the street.

The weather may respond at its convenience.

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¹ The author wishes to note, for completeness, that the acquaintance in question was his brother, Dennis.

² Dennis was standing beside him at the time, holding the list.

³ Dennis was also holding the keys. The two men share a car. Dennis drove him to the store, and reports that he "had to go back in and pay for the peas anyway, because they'd thawed."

⁴ Dennis also drives him at 2 a.m. "He sits in the back," said Dennis Hedges, 47. "We haven't spoken since March. He nodded at me once in the driveway, and I think he considers us square."