I walk into the familiar store. It smells of popcorn from the cafe. I make a sharp left to head to the side of the store. I stop to listen to a small group of people. I'm not able to count exactly how many there are before I step off to the side to hide myself in a nearby aisle.
A guy, Deep Voice, asks, "Are you ready? Let's go." A woman, N1, replies, "No, let me do one more round." Then the group starts saying goodbyes. It sounds like they were two different groups that had met up to chat. You can hear a big kissing sound. MUAH! Another lady, N2, says something about a restaurant, but she's too quiet for me to understand anything. One of the other people chuckles at what she says. N1 asks her, "So it's just gonna be us or?" N2 explains, "No, she invited some friends." Someone is trying to get someones attention, it sounds like someone younger talking. They repeatedly say the name Miranda. I back up a little bit to try to see what's going on. They're right next to the aisle of feminine items, and someone is waving a box in a little boys face. Deep Voice chimes in, "You're traumatizing him!" N2 starts walking away from the group. She says "See you tomorrow," as they part ways.
As I approach the toy section, the first thing I hear is "We're definitely getting this." It's a little girl talking. Another one speaks up, "Oh, it has a place to open up and put make up." They continue to talk- "The doors open just like a real one." "We're definitely getting this" "Mom, can we get it?" Mom says, "No, not right now," as she emerges from the aisle. She's wearing a pink hoodie. The girls continue talking about what ever toy they're obsessing over- look at this and look at that. "It even sounds like it" One of them is trying to get the other's attention. "Look" she says three times. Mom tries to get their attention too by saying "girls" in a way that's trying to provoke them to get up and follow her. I walk around and enter the aisle the girls are on from the other side. One is about 7-8 and the other is 5-6. All of this talk is about a pink car for a doll. As soon as I get there the younger of the two who was already on the floor slightly stands up and bends down to push the car down the aisle and around the corner.
In a section full of sale items a girl rushes past me trying to get her mom's attention. She calls out, "Mom!" LMM acknowledges her, "What?" "For Kaitlin. . ." When it does appear that LMM is going to respond, she further explains, "Because she's obsessed with socks." LMM says ok, meaning that it's ok for her to get them, and the girl tosses them in the basket.
Right next to the sock girl an employee is organizing cat litter on the shelf. He pulls off all of the stickers that were on the shelf to mark that things were on sale. We both hear a loud noise. He looks over his shoulder and then disappears, I assume to go see what it was. There's another employee picking up a messy area of the sale shelf. Then I see part of the big group from the beginning of my visit. I know it's them because they say the name Miranda again. There's for sure N1 and Deep Voice too.
Right next to the clearance/sale section is the holiday section. There's two college students- they appear to look that age, and have college apparel on. They're obviously a couple because they're hugging and touching each other. The girlfriend says that she hates Christmas and that it sucks because it's a lonely holiday. The boyfriend, who seems like he's a very energetic person (he's got a loud voice and looks very ecstatic) tells her that he likes christmas because he has poor lighting in his room and he gets to pick what color is going to go on the tree and lighten it up. Then he make some comment about how it's better than Thanksgiving because he gets the good food without having to socialize with family. There's another comment about how most of their family is white, but I don't understand it and they walk off.
In another aisle there's a woman looking at coffee. There's a guy moving slowly behind her. She tells him, "The only thing that's decaf is this Donut Shop one". I expected the guy to say something but he didn't. After a while of silence I back up so that I can see the aisle again. There's other people now, so maybe that explains why they were being quiet. Both of them continue to look at coffee.
I walk down another food aisle, but I make it quick, and didn't pay much attention to the people that were there. Two girls were there, presumably a mom and daughter. The daughter, who's at least high school or college age seems to be complaining about the store. The mom says to her that she wasn't going to go to the other stores, basically implying that her daughter needed to just suck it up, I think.
When I get to the check out area, the girl in front of me is looking at her phone. In the lane to my left there are two girls trying to do funny faces and sounds for a baby in the cart. The baby seems to be upset and is about to cry. They're trying to keep him/her happy. The adults shuffle around the cart, and I realize that it's not two girls, one of them is a guy. He has very long black hair. The girl has short hair though and a beanie on. Her teeth aren't straight either. I take note that the baby is in the built in baby seat on the cart. I think that's unusual- parents typically bring the babies in in their own carseats and set them in the cart. I look away for a moment but then I hear the lady say, "Ah! That was my eye you little shit." She looks to the guy, and tells him, "He just kicked me in the eye."
It's my turn to check out. The employee asks if I found everything ok, and I say yes. We don't talk again until the process is done and she's telling me to have a good night as she hands me my receipt. As I walk to the door I pass the cash register where the couple and the baby are checking out. They're only buying one item, a set of baby PJs. They're briefly talking about them with the cashier, saying that they are cute. Their total comes to $12.90. That's the last thing I hear before going out the door.
Ethnography
No comments:
Post a Comment