Featured Essay

The Women Who Cry in Aldi

I had just reached the dairy section when I heard the fiercest, tiniest wailing coming from the front of the store. As I picked up the extra sharp cheddar, I listened to the raw, shuddering urgency of the cries and thought, Now THAT'S a tiny baby. I made my way over to the deli meats and then the yogurt, fully expecting the baby to stop crying, but even as I headed toward the frozen section, the cries continued to fill the entire store.

Go help. The thought pulsed through me. So I moved toward the front of the store and peered around an end cap to find the source of the cries. It was a young mom, one hand on a stroller, the other checking out just a handful of groceries at the self-checkout lane.

No, she's almost done. Don't make a scene. I mean, we're Minnesotan after all, and avoiding embarrassment is one of the chief rules of our people. I didn't want to shine a spotlight on this poor woman struggling with her baby by offering to help. I didn’t want to upset her further.

So I turned around and headed back to the dairy section, only to stop halfway down the aisle. The baby continued to wail, and though I am years past nursing, I felt something like a let-down response in my body. I was starting to sweat and found myself suspended in time, stuck somewhere between the milk section and seven years ago.