Do you remember that Seinfeld episode, where Jerry has reserved a rental car and when he arrives to pick it up, the rental car company is out of cars? It leads to a shtick about how the rental car company knows how to take the reservation, but it is in honoring the reservation that the company has a problem. Well, that’s how I felt Sunday.

      I was out of fish oil capsules. Since I am a connoisseur of such things and my Nordic Naturals – Omega 3-6-9 aren’t available at anything as mundane at CVS, I knew a trip to the natural food store was on tap. Out in suburbia, our natural food store, Good Foods, is closed on Sundays. Knowing my schedule for the day, I knew I would be passing in the vicinity of Ellwood Thompson and surmised that ET as the area’s 1st natural food store would certainly carry my preferred brand.

     Even though I lived in the City for many years, I sometimes feel like I am entering an alternate universe when I revisit an area I haven’t frequented recently. The strip center where Ellwood Thompson is located is one I knew well. When we lived on Monument Avenue, the Blockbuster there was the one I used. The ABC store is around the corner. There use to be a High’s Ice Cream store there, which you know based on my waistline had to be a favorite. Hall Tree for Windsor Farms discards was another known entity. Ukrop’s, Little Caesar’s, CVS in the adjacent strip were all familiar haunts. When we moved from the City, Ellwood Thompson had only been ensconced there for a few years.

     Arriving near the dinner hour, I was amazed at how dominant Ellwood Thompson had become in this strip center. The cars and the foot traffic wasn’t all to the adjacent Blockbuster as in the past; it was to ET. Ellwood Thompson had become a PLAYER. But enough of that, I need to get this errand done.

     As I entered ET, I see what looks to be a cantaloupe on display, but it’s labeled as an "ambrosia" melon. It’s $2.99 @ pound. If you know me, then you know I am a frugal shopper. I can buy a whole (multiple in season) cantaloupe for this price, but estimating the weight at 2 pounds, knowing I won’t have to make another stop, wanting some fruit with dinner and just plain curious what the hell an ambrosia melon is, I caved to impulse. On to the supplement section and with one inquiry from a helpful clerk, I had my Omega 3-6-9′s and was at the check out. 

     It was then that it hit me. Had I been transported to New Zealand. Was this a Maori convention? All around me - nothing but tattoos and piercings - the clerks, the customers. Boy, what would Jerry do with this and what question would he pose. Let’s see, you very careful what you put in your body, it’s what you put on your body you don’t care about? Just asking.

     Oh, the ambrosia melon? Weighed a tad more than 3 pounds. Was $10. Just a juicer cantaloupe. You know there use to be a vegetable stand down the street from ET on a vacant lot where Floyd ends into Thompson. Do you know how much cantaloupe I could have bought there this time of year for $10?