Dead fish in a Costco

Tonight's dinner?
London, ON
March 2019
This photo originally shared on Instagram

I'm walking through a crowded Costco outlet, pushing my cart like a spawning salmon fighting its way upstream. My wife has asked me to stop in on the way home from the office to pick up some stuff for dinner. We jokingly call it hunting and foraging, but there's nothing funny about the way my fellow shoppers absent-mindedly drive their carts through the crowded store. It almost feels like combat.

I know exactly what I'm looking for, and where I'll find it. And my head is on a swivel, looking for a break in the traffic so I can navigate across the open area between the bakery and meat section and find my way, unscathed, to the back of the store.

No one's speaking, which strikes me as odd. All I hear are footsteps, boots on concrete, shuffling feet and squeaking wheels. No eye contact. No interaction. All I see, and feel, is muted grey, even darkness, a generalized sense of muffled nothingness. It bothers me, and I start thinking of ways to find the light. What, in a giant warehouse-store, can prompt an immediate smile? My eyes and brain get to work.

It doesn't take me long, as the frozen fish display soon looms to my right. I wait for the attendant to wander away before I get to work. When I'm done, I look up at the label: Whole organic chinook salmon. It's as if the universe intended for me to find these fish today.

Yes, it's a dumb picture of a couple of dead fish. But it made me crack a smile in a time and place where I really needed one. Hopefully you, as well. That alone makes me glad I braved the current to capture it.

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