Rob's Corner: The Sauce Aisle Standoff

Something I am seeing about myself. If I start avoiding something because it's hard, I'll keep avoiding it until I don't leave the house at all. I don't want that to happen, so even on the days when going out sounds unbearable, I make myself go. Not always to somewhere big. Sometimes just to the grocery store.

Big box stores are their own kind of chaos for me. Too many people, carts pulling out of nowhere, kids running past, someone always coming at me from my right side, where I can't see them coming. It's not one thing. It's everything at once, and my brain doesn't get to opt out of any of it.

But there's this one smaller grocery store we've gone to for years, and somewhere along the way I got fixated on it. Whoever picks the music there deserves a raise. It's slower, it's quieter, and if we hit it at the right time, I can actually walk the aisles instead of surviving them. I pick out my own fruit now. Apparently I buy enough peaches to feed a family twice the size of ours. Heather says our kids are grown and gone and I still shop like I'm expecting them for dinner. She's not wrong.

Here's the part that makes her laugh. Sometimes another shopper just stops dead in the aisle, cart crooked, blocking everything, completely lost in deciding between two jars of sauce. And it makes me furious. Heather points out that I do the exact same thing. I don't think I do. She says I definitely do.

Heather's Translation

What I've noticed is that Rob's frustration in that aisle isn't really about the sauce, or the cart, or the stranger standing there too long. Everything is already harder for him than it used to be. There's more noise in his head than most people carry, and he's managing it constantly, even in a quiet store on a slow afternoon.

When someone blocks the aisle, it gives him somewhere to put that frustration that isn't himself. It's easier to be annoyed at a stranger than to be angry at your own brain for making a grocery run feel like work. I don't say that to excuse it. I say it because understanding it means I don't take it personally, and neither should he.

What I love watching is the rest of it. Him picking fruit like he's got all the time in the world. Him walking, not just surviving the walk. That's a version of him that doesn't get to show up everywhere. This store lets it show up here.

One fact worth knowing:

Sensory hypersensitivity can occur after acquired brain injury. A 2026 narrative review reported prevalence estimates as high as 83%, while also noting that the evidence remains limited and varies across studies.

Source:

Neuropsychological perspective on sensory hypersensitivity after acquired brain injury. Brain Communications, 2026. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13276873/

What Helped

We choose a smaller store, go at a quieter time, and keep the trip focused. Those changes do not remove the overload, but they make the outing more manageable.

Closing

Everybody's version of “the good store” is different. What's yours, or your person's? We'd love to hear it.

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