Having been born and bred here in Saco, there are definite ins and outs that only locals know about and certain ways of life only known to this area are accepted as a day in the life of a Southern Mainer.

Like all small hometowns, over the years most of the local faces here have grown from strangers to, at the very least, acquaintances. Just about everyone from here can be linked by the parents, siblings or children. In short, everyone knows everyone at least a little bit.

So when tourist season strikes every year I can guess someone is from away at a glance, usually proven with an accent upon closer inspection (although dead giveaways of white socks with flip flops are a solid clue, and Speedos on men are a guaranteed seal of a tourist).

Everyone who grew up around here knows the cardinal rule: if it’s between Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends and you’re in a hurry you must, at all costs, avoid the supermarket by the off ramp closest to Old Orchard Beach. And we do avoid it like it is the infectious plague.

In a moment of either sheer stupidity or a stroke of adventurous spirit (depending on who’s defining my actions) I decided recently to overlook three decades of proof in my upbringing and head to said grocery store on a Friday evening. During rush hour. In August.

The horror.

However instead of sending me screaming home to curl up into a fetal position what was a simple store run turned out to be sheer entertainment within seconds of entering.

I’m personally not huge on crowds, and tend to get a little claustrophobic after a few minutes. But for some reason that night my husband and I were soaking up the sights of the fellow shoppers like they were part of a twisted circus performing alongside the strawberries and produce.

Ladies and Gentlemen! Come one! Come all! And experience for your very own eyes our own Grocery Circus!

Socks with sandals? Check! Woman inexplicably wearing plus-sized bathing suits with shorts up to their armpits at a store? Check! Giant clans of brightly-clad families talking in other languages clogging the aisles, making them impassible for we, the actively shopping? Check! Speedos? Quite thankfully, none spotted.

The pièce de résistance came in the form of the one and only person in front of us in line at the seafood section. Thinking we scored with the lack of wait time, we queued in behind her, only to spend the next twenty minutes in complete awe.

Ms. Motorcart addressed the approximate 18-year-old man behind the counter briefly from her riding shopping cart (reasons for use unknown), only to flip open her cell phone and begin an, at times, embarrassingly candid conversation with her daughter-in-law (so we gathered, not a lot of subtlety there).

As we waited and the line grew exponentially as she discussed her unfortunate reasons for dietary restrictions (read: “ewww”), and the proposed menu for their dinner on the phone, while sending the seafood clerk to cook her lobster (size specified, of course) and gather up pounds of shrimp, haddock and scallops. Just as the end was in sight for said clerk, she paused her obnoxiously loud litany to inform him she no longer wanted the lobster cooked, but he could probably sell it to someone else, ordered two more uncooked lobsters and requested cooking instructions, all the while interrupting him to answer the woman on the other end of the phone call.

The poor clerk looked at Ms. Motorcart like he was just on the verge of snapping, breathed deep, and continued on down his customer line. Well done, young one.

As we continued through the next few rings of the Grocery Circus, I began to remember why it is locals avoid this store in the summer. More meandering, glazed-eyed tourists. The next ring brought a pair of Emergency Medical Technicians wheeling a woman atop a stretcher (injuries a mystery) followed by a fully panic-stricken store clerk repeating at top volume, “I think something happened! I thing something happened! I don’t know what it was, but I think something happened!”

One epic stalled checkout line later, we were finally making our escape from great Grocery Circus. I may have heard, on the way out, “Thank you, ladies aaaaaand gentlemen!” But I couldn’t quite discern that voice from the screaming baby seemingly located in my eardrum.

Labor Day is (blissfully) next weekend. Until then, I’ll stick to my local favorite butcher shop and farm stand, where everything will be believed as seen and as it should be.

”“ Elizabeth Reilly can be reached at elizabethreilly1@yahoo.com.