ALDI GRAND OPENING-By Mary Lu Scholl
Recently, there was a grand opening of a long-awaited Aldi store in Crystal River.
I don’t know about you, but in nearly 70 years, there have been several things that work, family, and other obligations have prevented me from participating in.
The concerts where people bring tents and grills to the parking lot to wait for the gates to open. Parades where you position your truck precariously over a ditch to be within candy-tossing distance from the floats. Game stores where people crouch on sidewalks with tablets in their hands and enormous headphones. Even movies where hundreds are waiting, dressed in appropriate character costumes, to see the show just one more time.
Now there was a new grocery store that probably wouldn’t have interested the twenty-one-year-old me.
I had no conflicting obligations. Free as a young bird, just learning to fly! Well, maybe an old bird that glides whenever possible. I set the alarm clock for oh-dark-thirty. Somewhere, I had seen the opening time as seven am.
I was there at a quarter before seven and was number fourteen. I was just a little disappointed at the lack of the expected crowd. Some did have fold-
up chairs, though. I left mine in the car. It was only going to be a few minutes, after all.
Yes, most were my age or older. One beautiful young girl was near me, and when she wasn’t chatting amiably with the women ahead of me, she was on her phone.
There were retired people, professional people, and many in between.
They didn’t open at seven.
By this time, I had struck up conversations with people around me. Some were saying eight-thirty am was the target time. By the time I heard that it was already seven-thirty, what the heck, another hour. We ran out of casual conversation immediately around me, so I watched them set up and move the snake lines designed to corral us into a ‘ruly’ rather than an ‘unruly’ crowd. Cheerful young people in matching shirts brought us numbers on cards so we could wander off at will without losing our early-bird benefits. They brought us water and welcoming smiles.
Then a representative of the Breakfast Station just down the walkway came out. He had cleverly baked skewers into pancakes, French toast and sausages and passed them out to the line now grown to fifty or more.
Rumor now said eight-forty-five. People began to follow him back to his restaurant and come
back with food and coffee. He and his wait staff started delivering food to people who ordered on-line. “I’m wearing a mango-colored T-shirt and sitting in a blue chair,” helped them find one gentleman nearby.
There was notably no one hiding in corners smoking funny tobacco as I remembered seeing in news reels of concertgoers waiting in line.
It was then eight-forty-five, and there were various dignitaries gathered in front of the store.
Either just before or just after that, several team members started running down the walk, slapping hands with willing prospective customers, cheering and stirring us up. It’s a good thing I didn’t have to run…
I didn’t recognize any of the people gathered for the photo opportunity, but I doubt any of them would recognize me, either.
Nine o’clock and all was well. By this time, there were well more than the hundred people who were promised goodies. The line stretched around the far end of the building.
The store’s doors were thrown open (carefully but with abandon) and propped that way by smiling, matching people. There was a generous goody bag, a gift card and an opportunity to be included in a drawing. No one ran amuck. Quarter deposits on the carts were waived.
It was a beautiful store. The produce was beautiful. The shelves were full. The prices were reasonable. The floors were clean and shiny. By this time, I only had about fifteen minutes before I was supposed to be somewhere else. I would have stayed longer if I’d gotten in sooner. As it was, I cheerfully picked out a dozen or so things and checked out. People were still coming in, and workers were still smiling!
I will be back. I’ve been waiting for it to open. Besides that, I have checked something off my bucket list…
