This Poor Provincial Life

I’m constantly on the edge of breaking into a song. There’s no getting around it. As a female born in 1986, I was raised on a slew of Disney musicals from “The Little Mermaid” to “Pocahontas.” Each year another movie came out, and I got another giant, glossy poster for my birthday and a soundtrack cassette for Christmas. To this day, I can still sing every line of half-a-dozen animated musicals that all include a slight variation of the following scene: A generally independent young woman is walking through a crowd of people in the town that she belongs to. She is content, generally happy, and she always has something to sing about. (She feigns independence, but, in just under eighty minutes, she’ll be a married princess.) Then, of course, the townsfolk begin singing along, and, before you know it, they’re all belting the same lyrics, and you’re wondering if they practiced those dance steps together at the last town hall meeting, lest said female lead starts marching through town with a song on her lips.

Yeah, Reading Terminal Market was kind of like that for me.

Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market is a large indoor market bustling with all kinds of people from many walks of life, just like a good townsfolk scene should be. Its rows and rows of vendor stalls are full of every kind of food you can crave and a fair amount of other assorted goods, like handmade jewelry and pottery. Anything has the right to be called “goods” in an actual market.

In the southwest corner of the market lies the produce section, and this is when I start mumbling a song about this poor provincial life. Elderly men and women shuffle in pairs through the five-foot fruit and vegetable stands that are divided in sections of bold colors with impeccable order. The mundane potatoes and onions are the only lazy sight amongst the green and green and green that twists around in well-established aisles. In the corner sits piles of produce like aloe vera beans, Mexican papaya, and Italian eggplant. One older woman with long, baggy cheeks and a pilled black beret resting low over her grey bob picks up an eggplant, but barely lifts it from its home before setting it back down and slowly grabbing the one next to it. She repeats this with several other pieces of produce, looking practiced in her hands and elsewhere in her mind. Behind her is a woman in her mid-thirties in a bright purple tank top with a yoga mat strapped to her back. She picks up an apple and tosses it into a cloth bag she has brought with her. On second thought, she grabs another.

I hum my way out of the produce corner of the market to explore the rest of the 78,000 square feet of the market. I squeeze through the bustle of shoppers in the market’s aisles to a small space called Contessa’s French Linens, and just about every piece of fabric on the woman’s table is toile—toile plastic bag holders, toile table runners, toile tea napkins. I wonder if the woman behind the table is Contessa herself. I think about introducing myself, but a small wooden sign catches my eye: “Le Toilette” it reads in scripted tempura paint. I don’t think it’s right to just add “le” before everything to make it French, and I start to doubt Contessa’s authenticity. She probably isn’t Contessa after all. Or, if she says she is, I bet she’s lying.

Across from the so-called Contessa is Martin’s Quality Meats and Sausage where you can buy beef tripe, full leg bones with the meat ripped off, smoked neck bones, and even pork fat back for only $2.29 per pound. I look over my shoulder to see if Contessa gives them dirty looks for stinking up her corner, but she is pressing her fingers against her linens to iron them, a big smile on her face. She looks like she is pleasantly humming to herself. Touched, I decide Contessa would most certainly be in my musical.

Further down the row of vendor stalls, tucked between the Mediterranean food and a honey stand, is a full-service cheese shop. Behind a streaked glass display case sits varieties of cheeses in thin slices or full blocks that look like potential weapons. They all sport little tags in front of them that gave their name and an elaborate description of their taste. One “truncated pyramid” apparently gives “a surprising earthy and mushroom flavor develops as the cheese reaches room temperature.” My goodness.

As I stare at the dozens of cheeses, I try to imagine how one could be so educated about a certain food. I mean, clearly there is a whole culture of cheese connoisseurs. There’s a large society of wine-o’s, so why not cheese-o’s? If I were to be an expert on a food, it would have to be Spaghetti O’s. I’d be a Spaghetti’O-o. I’d submit articles to journals about the most effective way to get the best meatball-to-noodle ratio in every spoonful. I’d compare and contrast the name brand and store brands. I’d have meetings at the county library on every third Thursday. I’d put a stop to this “Cover before heating” nonsense; how else could you get everything else you eat to smell and taste reminiscent of Spaghetti’Os?

Nothing rhymes with Spaghetti O’s, so there is no potential for a song, and I lose interest. All of these thoughts make me thirsty, and I stand on my tiptoes to see if I can see a restroom icon on a wall or hanging from a ceiling. I see a sign and pass about ten more sporting an international bathroom icon before I reach the one I saw from across the store. I wonder if every vendor gave a percentage of their profits to the abundance of signs. My shameful days working at Dippin’ Dots in the mall gave me full knowledge of “Excuse me, but where is the restroom?” (They always had to walk by the restrooms to get to me.) At the shop closest to the restrooms, just before a left turn directed by half-a-dozen signs, I see an elderly woman working at a chocolate shop, and her eyebrows are so furrowed I can barely see her eyes. She is growling at me in her mind, and I know immediately that she whittled those bathroom signs over many nights.

Outside the restroom is a faded sign reading: “Please adjust clothing properly. Not washing hands may be grounds for dismissal.” A small plaque next to the sign states the poster for employees is from the 1930’s. That the sign is old goes without saying; after all, today the sign would read something more like: “Not washing your hands will sure as hell get your ass fired because we don’t want a—“ (and here someone would have scribbled the word ‘fucking’) “--lawsuit.” Or something like that. I think I might write a song about that. I’ll contact the vendors soon; I think we could get a wicked routine choreographed faster than Contessa can say “Oui oui!”