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Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix
Spotted in a Sarasota grocery store:
Because all of us should have teeth like Elliot Yamin’s.
Editor’s note: Elliot’s teeth are crooked because he suffers from juvenile diabetes; it’s not his fault. And they’re still a sight better than those of some other singers we could name.
Hey, I’m from Sarasota, and my teeth are jammin’ along just fine!
posted by Ransom on 8-21-2006 at 6:44 pm
Hilarious. Say, Mary, pick me up a couple tubes, would ya? They’ll go nicely with the Donny and Marie his and her ones I have from the 70s.
posted by David on 8-21-2006 at 7:16 pm
I have a question about Sarasota grocery stores, as long as we’re on the subject. I was down in those parts last fall, and was shocked by the age of the bag “boys” at the Publix.
When the guy who’s offering to push my cart is pushing 90, I wave him off. But that’s partly because I don’t understand the tipping etiquette.
Is this a Gulf Coast phenomenon? Or are the uber-elderly bagging groceries and pushing carriages throughout this great nation?
posted by Jason on 8-21-2006 at 9:59 pm
Ransom, wanna take this one? I’m just here on vacation, so I’m not schooled in the ways of the natives.
posted by Mary on 8-22-2006 at 9:12 am
Fresh off a 4-year assignment in Tampa, I can tell you that behind a grocery cart is the safest place for Florida’s surplus of 80-and-over crowd. With more retirees per capita than any other state (this is a guesstimate — I’d like to know the real answer if I’m wrong), they’ve got to do something to finance their golf trips to Boca.
And — BONUS! — it keeps them out of rush hour traffic!
posted by Melissa on 8-22-2006 at 10:00 am
Big mental_floss Sarasota contingent. I’ve been approximately 15 times – every summer from 1980 to 1992, a few days in 2000, and a long weekend in my Grandma’s condo last October.
St. Armands Square – site of the next big get-together?
posted by Jason on 8-22-2006 at 10:59 am
What is it with Publix here in Sarasota anyway? Sarasota generally seems to be full of old and/or crazy people, and this generally unhinged mental state is reflected in my neighborhood Publix. All logic seems to be set aside here, and it extends to the grocery stores. After searching frantically for pasta in all the usual places - next to canned tomato sauce, for instance, or somewhere alongside other starches - I had to stop and ask a (geriatric) Publix employee. Duh! The pasta was on aisle 4 with the feminine hygiene products. Because that makes sense.
posted by Becky on 8-23-2006 at 11:34 am
I don’t know what you guys are talking about — Publix has it all figured out. A few years ago, the king of the tiny African nation of Togo (since embroiled in bloody conflict, but at the time peaceful) was touring Sarasota, much as Mary is doing now. When asked by a local news crew what his “favorite thing about America” was, he answered:
“Publix!”
posted by Ransom on 8-23-2006 at 5:27 pm