Just Like Zikan's

There is no getting around it; when you live out in the country, as I do, when you go shopping, you get enough to last a while. There is a store in a spot in the road town nearby however, and though it's not a big box store that can get the super low prices, you can still completely survive using it.

The other night my husband was looking for a can of olives. I have a habit of buying extra items when I go grocery shopping, especially baking ingredients since he also has a huge sweet tooth. This led to his using the at-a-glance method when he looks for anything in the cabinets because he can just declare it not there and I'll find it, which I did. I reached in behind all the baking supplies and pulled out the can. "Just like Zikan's!" I said. He laughed.

What is Zikan's? Think of the general store in all the old westerns you ever saw. It is jokingly (and lovingly) referred to as the Catawba Mall. They sell everything you could possibly need. In one side is clothing, chore boots, baby clothes and items, cloth, sewing notions, cleaning supplies, groceries, even a small old fashioned meat counter. The other side and the basement has everything else: fan belts, small appliances such as radios, coffee makers, waffle irons and the like, dishes, glassware, cutlery, utinsels, pots and pans, paint, plumbing and electrical supplies, sporting goods, bicycles, stove pipe, mops, brooms, buckets, nuts, bolts, nails, tools, garden supplies, fans, small farm supplies like fence wire and insulators, chicken feeders and waterers, even hunting and fishing licenses and gear. There is not much this place doesn't carry and has for more years than I've been here. Considering how much they have, the building is not that large, so they stock things in front of and on top of other items. All you have to do is ask and they can reach, unseeing, into a pile and pull it out. Very few times I've gone in there and they were out of something or didn't carry it at all. Thus the joke, "See, just like Zikan's!"

I'll tell you what; you can shop the Wall-Marts of the world all you want, but if you really want that hard to find, unique item, you need a store like Zikan's.