Shopping on St. Croix

The title begs the question, "Is there shopping on St. Croix?" For tourists, yes, there are plenty of shops that sell the usual touristy junk ("junque" for the more highbrow), including T-shirts, brightly colored wraps, refrigerator magnets, shot glasses, postcards, ashtrays (for those people who persist in ruining their health), ad nauseum. Christiansted has its share of more upscale stores, too, specializing in fine clothing, jewelry, works of art, cigars, even chocolate. Frederiksted is gradually rebounding after almost two years of being torn apart by waterfront construction.

For local people, however, shopping on St. Croix is circumscribed. It definitely is not as varied as on St. Thomas. St. Croix has two K-Mart stores, several grocery store "chains" (Plaza Extra, Pueblo, Food Town), at least one high-end grocry store (with equivalent high prices as it caters mainly to Yuppies, East Enders, and Boat People), and one "discount" store (I put "discount" in quotes because even though this store's name is Cost-You-Less, a lot of people locally refer to it as "Cost-You-More"). Frederiksted has a number of Mom-and-Pop type corner groceries, owned and run primarily by Palestinians.

Likewise, many gasoline stations (again, mostly owned and operated by Palestinians) also carry grocery and household items, but I would not call these "convenience stores" by any stretch of the imagination. Only one possibly could earn that title, and that is the fairly new gas station right next to Plaza Extra West. I don't shop there, however, because the owners are cinchy, IMHO. They spent thousands and thousands of dollars to build a beautiful, clean, modern-looking station, but then stopped at installing "pay-at-the-pump" technology because it was going to cost a few thousand extra to have someone from the mainland install this very convenient service. The owner's attitude is lousy, too. So I go to the nice and friendly, but dirty and disheveled Consumers' Gas Station right next door. The owner there is a prince of a fellow and helps me with my Arabic.

The island also supports one framing and artists/crafts supply store. The square footage of this store is not even close to a Michael's or a Hobby Lobby, but somehow the owner manages to cram just about everything that anyone might need within its confines. A lot of the stuff is hideous, like the plastic canvas items and the dolls that little old ladies crochet gaudy dresses for (yes, they still make these grotesqueries) and those loops used to make potholders on looms. The owner never gets rid of anything old or broken either, and cardboard boxes are stored everywhere, so much so that it is sometimes difficult to navigate the aisles, especially if one has to get to the bathroom in a hurry. In the back, near the bathroom, is an area housing yet another travesty: literally hundreds of framing jobs that islanders dropped off aeons ago and never picked up, thereby costing the owner the supplies and time that went into framing these items as well as the lost floor space for storing them.

Rumor has it that a Home Depot may be coming to St. Croix. [Note: I personally would rather have a Lowe's move here.] If Home Depot does open on island, it might be located in the old Cost-You-More location across from K-Mart West. Is that why Centerline Road (renamed Queen Mary Highway in a burst of legislative busyness a few years ago, although no one knows exactly why) has been torn up, lo these many months? I noticed today that the new traffic lights have finally been installed and the road repaved, so the detour through the K-Mart parking lot may soon be a thing of the past. Dear God, I hope so! The traffic snarls and inconvenience of this detour have almost been enough of a bother to make many people think about moving back to the mainland. No matter what is going to happen on this stretch of road, it must be big to warrant new traffic signals since the "shopping center" that contains mostly K-Mart West doesn't seem to experience enough traffic to justify a fancy new traffic system.

If I were Linda Ellerbee, I would end this now with " . . . and so it goes" because that's about it for shopping on St. Croix and that's also about it regarding the way things get done around here.