A Study in Contrasts at Madison Market

Last night, we trekked over to Madison Market to get our favorite toothpaste. (Yes, it is strange to like a toothpaste enough to go out of our way for it, but the stuff widely available does not make us want to stick it in our mouth and brush away.) The store is always insanely packed, and we dread going there because the lines, oh the lines. But yesterday found the store a relative ghost town, and we slid right into line behind an older, sixty-ish man as he unloaded his cart to be checked out. He was sporting a magnificent salt-and-pepper mustache atop his scraggy beard, and we guessed that he was perhaps Greek or Turkish but we really weren't sure.

Seattlest is a notorious grocery cart voyeur, so we spied that his stash consisted of three bottles of Madeira wine, two stacks of chicken pot pies, some vegetable sundries and olive oil. With a quiet, shuffling demeanor he slid through the checkout area to deposit his cart with the others near the front door, returned to his place in line and then thought better of it, going back to retrieve his cart and carefully place it at the end of the check stand. He then reached over in front of us to the magazine stand, and plucked a copy each of Bitch and Bust, gently resting them on top of his pile to be checked out.