Eastgate Liquors

This is my neighborhood liquor store but since I don’t drink and my wife drinks moderately, I only pop in every now and then.
It’s nothing fancy but it’s has a decent stock of just about anything you would want. Eastgate Liquors doesn’t pretend to be a hoity toity liquor store with 500 different beers, 2000 wines and spirits from all over the world. This is a place you come to pick up some basic wine, beer or liquor and head back home or out to the party.
It has the requisite lottery area and every now and then I see people hanging out but not often.
Prices are OK. Not cheap, Not ridiculous.
A couple of snacks — potato chips and candy and the like.
It’s a good, solid liquor store with friendly, helpful staff.

my grandmother often says, «you will pick, and pick, and pick… until you pick SH*T!» it is usually said with regard to being too picky/​basically trying a million things and still not making up one’s mind, causing the option (s) left to be crappy (pun intended). my would’ve-been MIL says it too. must be a blactina and/​or caribbean grand/​mother thing.
what does this have to do with eastgate liquors, you ask? well, i found myself @ EL en route to what i think may have been a date with my ex (yup, the ex that is the son of the would’ve been MIL who says the «sh*t» comment like my granny). what was supposed to be a 5-​minute exchange somehow turned into food, drinks and football-​watching at his house and i was supposed to bring liquor — which i forgot. (yeah…i know. liquor plus ex loves = dangerous.) EL was the closest place i was aware of, so i popped in there, hoping to satisfy my curiosity about the drive-​through too. (i’m really perplexed at liquor store drive-​throughs. i’d never seen them before i moved to this area. it just sounds soooo wrong.) but the drive-​through wasn’t open. bummer.
i parked and entered the store, and this is really where the «pick sh*t» comment comes into play. as soon as i walked in the door, i was nearly knocked over with a whiff of what i can only describe as sewage. *BARF!* it really caught me off guard, and i stopped for a minute, thinking perhaps one of the two employees unloading boxes right inside the doorway must’ve ripped a serious fart right before i walked in. i guess not though, b/​c i trotted quickly away from them and towards the back, and the offensive smell remained even though i’d moved aisles away. i couldn’t take it so covered my mouth & nose with my scarf and started heading back to the door when i tripped on the UNFINISHED floor and almost landed on my face. WTF?! i guess it’s not enough that the store smelled like a shit-​hole, but it looked like one too. besides several of the shelves being understocked and the boxes all over the place, the peeling, cracked, half concrete and half linoleum [or some other cheap, failing material] floor was a mess.
a 3^rd employee, who was behind the counter, asked if i was okay. he’s probably the only reason this is a 2-​star instead of 1-​star review. i grumbled «yes» and «thank you» while pulling my scarf back across my nose and he gave me a sheepish expression and shrug of his shoulders i took to me something like, «i’m sorry, i know this place looks/​smells like a dump.» while looking at him i realized the liquor i’d been searching for was behind him/​the counter sealed w/​the specialty stuff, so asked for the smallest bottle. even for a small bottle, i was surprised by the price and wonder if he gave me a little break since i almost took a spill due to the horrid condition of the establishment. whatever, it was cheap and fast, and i got out of there quickly w/​o inhaling much more of the outhouse aroma.
i drove to my ex’s hearing my grandma/​his mother in my head and laughing, wondering if it that store stench was a sign that i shouldn’t have been heading to his house at all. i wouldn’t call him a sh*t, even though he did some pretty sh*tty things to me towards the end and our break-​up was a total shitstorm. when i arrived he gave me a big hug, and ironically, he said, «you smell great!» (thank goodness for girly lotions & potions, LOL.) i think, after years of not speaking, we are becoming… friends? (enter comments about backsliding, ex’s being ex’s for a reason, and general self-​delusions here.) who knows if we’d ever pick each other again. but i urge you to never, ever pick eastgate liquors. they are most definitely — SH*T.