My Long-term, Long-distance Relationship with Duane Reade
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. To spread the light of liberty world-wide for every land.” — Sir Duane Reade
Some people find it odd that my favorite store on earth is Walgreens. When I lived in Manhattan, it was Duane Reade, which is owned by Walgreens, but sounds classier to say it’s your favorite store because unlike Walgreens, there’s no Duane Reade in Idaho (hell, there are barely any Duane Reades in Brooklyn).
Duane Reades are as ubiquitous in New York as coffee shops and plus-sized rats. About ten years ago, when my parents moved in to their current apartment in midtown Manhattan, I was elated to find that within a 3.5 block radius, there were 3 separate Duane Reades, one of which was 24-hours and had a grocery section complete with artisanal rice pudding (which I never tried, but still).
Apparently, they now even sell sushi. Unsurprisingly, it’s not half bad.
The omnipresence of Duane Reades is perhaps in part a reflection of the impatience of New Yorkers (walk more than 2 blocks for cough syrup? What is this, Idaho?), but also of the need for comfort for the millions of frazzled denizens — from the homesick expats, to the lovesick geriatrics, to the just plain sick-of-it-all. It has absolutely everything you will ever need. On my last trip to Duane Reade, I picked up the essentials: baby oil, envelopes, a Kit Kat.
My friend Anna (another NYC transplant in SF) often jokes that there’s no better Friday night than going to Target, her post-Duane Reade drug superstore of choice. Part of the joke is that we all go into these stores with a plan — get cotton balls, a protein shake, a shake weight — but like most shopping excursions, inevitably buy something we don’t need and will never use. “Eyeshadow. It’s always purple eyeshadow,” a normally demure Anna insists*. Our local Target even has a completely unnecessary Starbucks inside. It’s retail therapy, capped at $100 max, or the adult equivalent of weathering a boring trip to the grocery store with your parents for the mere prospect of getting a Kit Kat at checkout.
If I were out to simply spoil myself, I may opt for a store like Sephora, where earlier today, I heard a salesperson lauding the benefits of a skin cream infused with — wait for it — snail venom (“You have to try it!”) Duane Reade, on the other hand, sneaks in minor frivolities like purple eyeshadow alongside things you actually need to cope with feeling stressed (medicine, Western or hair-brained — aisle 3), getting older (hair dye — aisle 2; skin cream — aisle 1), or being a nobody (Moleskines — aisle 6; ukelele — aisle 7; wine — aisle 10). It ends up being an indulgent excursion under the guise of running errands, which is basically a dream state I hope to somehow be buried in.
In high school, I read A Tale of Two Cities where Dickens described a protagonist’s comforting home as a “harbour from the raging streets” of the French Revolution. I imagined opening his door to find nothing less than an endless selection of chicken soup, holiday themed Reese’s peanut butter cups, and control-top hose — all under one convenient roof, tucked away amidst the hell of NYC**.
Four and a half years ago, when I left NYC for the Bay Area, I traded the stress of the city for the stress of leaving your family 3000 miles away. My first apartment was next to a 7–11, my second a paltry bodega. Selections were minimal and most brands were local to California — something I should’ve embraced as the newest member in the environmentalist mecca. Instead, I felt like a lame American exchange student caught amidst the culinary wonders of Paris, shamefully craving a Big Mac.
I wanted my mother. And if I couldn’t have her, I wanted the next best thing. I wanted a Duane Reade.
In my last visit to NYC, like all visits, I tried to do things I couldn’t do in San Francisco. I went to the MoMa, I drank a $25 cocktail, but most New York of all, I went to Duane Reade at 3am and bought an environmentally criminal bottle of water, which the cashier handed to me in a plastic bag. The novelty of the situation had me prancing back home, swinging the bag wildly in my hand like a medieval weapon (with which to croquet any plus-sized rats). I thought back to the many times in SF that I arrived at the checkout without my reusable canvas totes, and shamefully answered that yes, I did need a bag, two in fact, averting my gaze from the scornful eye of the cashier, now forced to remove half of the 50lbs of household cleaners and loose produce he idiotically decided to stuff into only one brown bag. I thought about his smug look as he rang up my $0.20 surcharge, never breaking eye contact (at least that’s how I remember it). Back in the Duane Reade, the woman hadn’t even flinched. She didn’t even make eye contact, let alone break it. She was cold, but still provided everything that I needed, every hour that I needed it. She was New York.
On my last day during that visit, I saw my dear friend Berry who had driven over 3 hours from Massachusetts just to have a quick lunch with me. Before beginning her trip back, she wanted to stop at a Duane Reade to pick up some road essentials — vitamin water, calcium chews, a colorful toy wand. Within moments of walking through the automatic doors, we entered into the classic Duane Reade trance. Our brisk pace immediately slowed, our conversation silenced, and we eventually split off, forgetting momentarily about the other’s existence. An onlooker would have taken us for strangers — certainly not best friends of 15 years, separated by a continent, in our final moments together before we’d be apart again for at least another 6 months. At one point, I got stuck in the nail polish aisle, comparing two identical shades of pale. Twenty minutes passed. She ended up leaving late, I ended up buying nothing.
After work one day last week, I got the following text from Anna:
“At Walgreens. Lea is getting her prescription filled. So I’m killing time, looking at purple eyeshadow, of course.”
I laughed out loud, and grabbed my bag to join them. In our own little language, it was her way of saying hey, we’re out here all alone, 3000 miles from our moms. Let’s hang out.
Or maybe just hey, we’re out here all alone, 3000 miles from our moms. Let’s finally buy that purple eyeshadow she hates.
* Remarkably, this is the first definition/sample sentence for “demure” in the built-in Mac dictionary app that comes with all Apple computers (for the record, all I wanted was a word that conveyed “wears little makeup”):
o Demure | di ‘ myoor | adjective: (of a woman or her behavior) reserved, modest, and shy: a demure little wife who sits at home minding the house.
** What I’m belaboring here is that this is exactly the solace I seek, until the day I get to move closer to my mother (or get a golden ticket to tour the Amazon factory, which I like to imagine is more a wonderland of toiletries than a carnival of robotic arms conducted by Jeff Bezos, smoking a cigar and cackling atop a mountain of depressed brown boxes.)
