When we islanders go to the mainland we are very organized about it. Between the time you drive or walk off the boat and the time you have to get back, there are just so many hours. If you hope to get everything done on your list, you have to keep your head about you and pay attention to your watch. Mainlanders haven’t got a clue about what it is to spend a day measuring your list against the remaining time with an unforgiving ferry schedule, nor do they experience very regularly the desperation of the islander, stuck behind a slow car or in a construction zone, who wants only to sleep in his or her own bed that night.
Only our most leisured or profligate residents ever go to the mainland with only one thing to do. The longest list of stops I ever had numbered 17 destinations — and that was just before Christmas one year. Two regular stops are the bank and gas station, and we like buying picking up bulk ingredients at the natural food store or coop. And Reny’s.
Most of us go to one of the big grocery stores even though we have two stores on the island. One need never not make something here for the lack of a needed ingredient. The local stores usually have at least one sort of most things, but the shopper may have to be flexible. One time I wanted pineapple cut in rings, but I could find only chunks so I set them next to each other in a circle. Chocolate devil’s food cake might be the first choice but a plain chocolate might be the available one.
In summer with long waits in ferry line, and exasperating traffic on the mainland, it is almost worth it for the sake of steady blood pressure to stay home and do all shopping locally. The more expensive gas gets, the more we can justify either staying on or going off. Unless you have a long list of things to do, it is worth the price of a ferry ticket to buy gas on-island. If you have an empty tank, however, you can get back the price of the ticket in lower gas prices, and do a bunch of other errands, too. So there we are with our list in one hand and a calculator in the other.
Most islanders I know organize their trips so they can avoid crossing traffic. This means do all your right-hand errands outward bound from the ferry, and then doing the rest of the errands on the right hand returning. A distinct destination like a dentist appointment can determine the direction and timing, this time calculating whether one can get in all the stops in time to make the appointment. Nobody beats islanders at logistics.
Once my husband was in a store in Belfast, the grocery list in one hand, and pushing the cart with the other. As he raced purposefully up and down the aisles, he began to notice another person similarly focused and moving quickly, and recognized an island neighbor, both of them aiming for the four o’clock. Nearly all the mainland stores have been renovating and expanding, and meanwhile small needful things are tucked in strange places, where finding them has reduced me nearly to tears because I wanted so badly to get my errand done in a timely fashion.
Those stores reduce me to tears anyway. There are too many choices: I wish there was a plain food aisle where I could get the plain version of what I want and not the low fat, low salt, no salt, no fat, Ranch flavored or Balsamic infused, all natural store brand, lite sugar added, egg free, decaffeinated, half caffeinated, artificially sweetened, pureed, chunky version of whatever I am looking for. It is bad enough that products change their labels and if I instinctively reach for the familiar blue and gold label I might get home to find that now this item has high fructose sweetener or cilantro in it where it didn’t before and the one on my list that I wanted is now decorated in blue and green.
Browsing isn’t often an option either. The list drives us in and out of stores. If you have only a three-day supply of un-holey socks left, then meandering among the greeting cards is a luxury best left for people with a bed in a nearby town. Going shopping, that new leisure time activity of modern America, requires a precious day off. If the economy rested on the impulse buying of your average islander it would be in real trouble, which is not to say we don’t have die-hard shoppers in our midst.
As with most things, though, what you do all the time comes to feel natural and normal. An overnight visit with a mainland friend, and time to do errands on the list without bearing the last boat in mind, is both oddly unsettling and liberating. I keep forgetting that I don’t have to look at my watch.
Sandy Oliver cooks and writes on Islesboro.