Once upon a time in Jerusalem,
And this time – the neighborhood grocer.
The neighborhood grocer was once the neighborhood’s tribal campfire.
In the neighborhood centers, which were almost non-existent at the time, there was usually one grocery store where the whole neighborhood shopped, which also sold half a loaf of bread that was shamefully waiting in the bread cabinet that was built of wood with a mesh door against bored flies, small brown gas cylinders to fill the Sipholux and replace with used balloons that had the spike at the end Crushed inside, inside a paper wrapper that threatened to fall apart at any moment.
Pickles and olives in a moldy plastic bucket near the cash register, milk in a plastic bag that dripped sour milk left over from the sister of the bag in the fridge that had a small hole and created a white pool of milk at the bottom of the fridge , Eshel and white goblets.
On the dark counter stood white scales, for measuring the weight of the yellow cheese or the board cheese, which were the only cheeses at that time, and another scale with a metal plate on one side, and weights numbered in grams on the other side, on which the fruits and vegetables displayed on diagonal wooden shelves were weighed with wooden bars reinforced with wire Iron, long before the plastic or cardboard boxes.
Jute sacks were placed on the floor and inside were bulk rice, sugar, lentils and other dry goods.
A ceiling fan, or as he called – a ventilator, that went around in slow circles in the dark and crowded store, with its wings full of dust that would be cleaned at best once a year before Passover.
In some of the containers located near the cash register on the way, a fixed and expensive product was placed in the purchase account but remained near the cash register, in what is called the “successful method”.
If the child who was sent shopping, or the mother who was busy with the crying child in the stroller did not check the bill carefully, the product next to the cash register and on the counter where all the products were placed was calculated in the general bill but not put in the bag.
If the mother was vigilant enough and checked the bill before paying, the grocer would wear a surprised face that he had prepared ahead –
“Isn’t it yours, ma’am?”, and indifferently removes the product from the account.
Those who were less vigilant paid again and again for the same product that was next to the counter, and the exercise was successful – that’s why the method was called the successful (Matzliach) method.
There are some grocery owners who registered a patent on the exercise and bought apartments only from that innocent product that was sold over and over again, and provided the highest return in the world, long before Bitcoin and its friends.
Chewing gum or a lollipop instead of an excess, a notebook full of stains and lines written in dense writing in case “mother said you should write it down” or a sale on credit to families who will pay off the debt tomorrow.
At the entrance stood the daily newspapers printed every day on recycled paper and black ink that stained the fingers, next to green and empty boxes waiting for the next morning’s delivery.
The owner of the grocery store was the neighborhood gossip expert-
With an eternal cigarette in the corner of his mouth, a woolen hat and a teddy bear coat with stains from years, the grocery store owner knew all the neighborhood action – who fought with whom, who got divorced and who is the stingy one who makes sure that his wife buys only what is on the shopping list.
This was our childhood shopping experience,
Long before the era of carts that open for five shekels, supermarkets the size of a basketball court, LED lighting, the noise of the announcement over the loudspeakers and the shelves filled to exhaustion with dozens of identical products in different wrappers and a range of weights and prices that would confuse any professional economist.
The days of the grocery store are over and gone forever.
We only have a little to miss the innocent and simple days that used to be.
Shabbat of peace to the far and near from Jerusalem, and B’sorot Tovot.
The photographer is unknown.
