Vons, Grover Beach: Here is a store that’s clearly in violation of Brown V. Board (1954), which struck down the “Separate But Equal” doctrine laid down in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). This Vons is nowhere near equal to the store in San Luis Obispo, which is luxurious, with their salmon and cod laid out in mink-lined trays, and makes me feel like Poor White Trash on the scarce occasions when I stop there. The Vons in Nipomo is almost as classy. No, the Grover Beach Vons is shopped by Bakersfield refugees, massively obese women in motorized carts who enjoy gunning down the aisles in search of bargains or shoppers, especially small children, to run over. Negative: The Bake-o’s have the habit of showing up simultaneously and thus shutting down checkout lines when they reach critical mass. Far too many MAGA bumper stickers in the parking lot. Positive: If you order online, the clerks who bring out your groceries are unfailingly polite and sometimes even cheerful. And, while waiting for the checkout stand to FINALLY open up, I get to try out my Spanish on latino families in line with me, who smile at me indulgently and wonder why the old gabacho is speaking to them in Afrikaans.

Smart and Final, almost but not quite Grover Beach: Marvelous produce, pretty decent meat department, a vast array of one of my favorite foods: cheese. Negative: Counterintuitive entrance/exit doors, weird parking lot. The aisles are as narrow as arteries in need of immediate bypass surgery. Online ordering is terrible unless you order delivery. Why not go out and buy a new Porsche instead? It’s cheaper. Positive: The checkout people are usually very pleasant and positive. The customers are even pleasanter and positiver. You don’t mind much when the clerk listens happily to the old, old man in front of you who talks about his sopa recipe. Also, it’s great fun to call it “Fart and Sminal.”

Trader Joe’s: On the site of Elsie Cecchetti’s dairy farm, where she learned to drive a tractor when she was a little girl (she later drove our Branch School Bus). Negative: The worst parking lot in the Western Hemisphere. I strongly suspect the TJ’s has illicit business partnerships with local body shops. Positive: Stunning array of coffees, wines, and one of the best frozen aisles around. Pleasant, helpful clerks, some of the obviously the children of parents who came of age in The Haight during the Summer of Love. Yummy treats at the checkout stands, damn you, TJ!

(Below: A typical TJ parent; the TJ parking lot at 8:12 a.m. on a Tuesday)

Aldi: The relatively new kid on the block; a partner with the TJ people, German-based and so with organized Teutonically. Negative: Checkout Lines of Death. Sometimes the last cart in line has it back wheels in Los Berros. Quirky inventory: You can buy Bavarian Spaetzel AND rain boots on the same shopping trip, but sometimes they’re out of both, because said inventory seems to depend on Mr. Aldi’s mood that day. Go tomorrow, because a young German golfer earned a Silver in the Olympics golf tournament. Positive: Great prices, especially in the meat section, nice frozen foods, decent pickup service, pleasant checkers most days. If you don’t bring your own, they have PAPER BAGS, unlike the plastic bags that overrun, sadly, places like Tijuana. The real problem with Tijuana isn’t the cartels. It’s the Vons plastic grocery bags.