5 posts tagged “grocery”
My yen and yang seem to swirl around food-stuffs.
This past week I, among other things, went grocery shopping and got taken out to dinner.
You know the stereotype of the slow moving grocery line caused by a coupon-clipper, paying with cash and exact-change, who doesn't begin to start rummaging for these items in her massive saddle-bag until she's verified a price-match for every item scanned and then made sure all the bags made it into the cart?
I fear that I might become that person.
Twice in the past week I've picked out items, checked them out, paid for them, and not gotten home with them.
I suspect it is because I always have the kids with me when I'm shopping and the clerk, bagperson, and myself are usually distracted with them being cute when it comes time to put the bags back into the cart.
The latest instance was milk.
I picked up six, paid for six, and only got four home into the fridge.
(half-gallons mind you, they were on sale and thus less expensive per volume than the full gallons.)
However, as cosmic balance, the Millionaire and his wife were in town and I got taken out to dinner.
Chicken Oscar at Merchant's upstairs dining room and 18 year old Macallan scotches.
I'm going to make the choice to be really happy about the meal out, the good booze, and the after show at Tootsie's.
After all, no point crying over milk you paid for but were too lame to remember to put in your cart, so your 2 year old could have spilled it when you got home anyway.
Did a bit of shopping with the wife and kids.
Staples for us.
Diapers, wipes, Drano, frozen pizza, tacos, block cheese, and soft baked pretzels.
Since we have the two kids, it's just easier to have two carts to wheel them around in.
At checkout, there was, as is my luck, only one lane open and it was backed up with the folks who only go shopping once a month and overflow their carts.
So, I perk up when the post adolescent scrub (with a name tag of "Billy") who had been singing "White Wedding" to himself opens up the express checkout lane and calls out that he can help me.
Sure, we had more than 10 items, but he offered, right?
Sure, I can assume that he has assumed that the wife and I are each managing our own shopping expedition and aren't together.
He thinks he's got two shoppers, each with a cart of around 10 items.
Am I an asshole for not correcting his misplaced assumptions.
I consider this for a nanosecond and push the cart into the express lane and unload.
The wife follows and does the same.
Which is about the time he gets suspicious that we might actually be together.
"Wow, sure loading up the express there aren't we?" He passive-aggressively asks as he continues to scan items for which he is woefully ill-equipped to stack up. See, this being the express lane of 10 items or less, they saved a few pennies by not building a full counter past the cash register to bag items.
So I smile vacantly in my not so passable spaced out Paris Hilton impersonation as he assembles the leaning tower of pizza, tacos, and Huggies.
While inside my head I'm posing the question to myself; what the hell else would he be doing?
What is it exactly that I'm keeping you from getting to? The bridge? The chorus?
And isn't it a more efficient to the express checkout to scan all the items and deal with one total and payment instead of two transactions, as was his assumption that the wife's cart and mine were not a unit?
So, this was actually faster. Didn't slow down the non-existent flow one bit. I knew it was wrong.
But inside, I felt happily dirty, because I knew and he knew that I had broken the express checkout law.
It's a nice day to start again.
If you had a CD or album coming out, who would you thank in the liner notes?
When my CD/album comes out, the inside of the jacket/liner will be lined in horizontal light blue stripes to resemble college-ruled notebook paper. Aside from that it will be blank. It will be up to each person to fill in all the people they'd like to thank and what they're thankful for. Or alternately, they could write naughty limericks on the lines. Possibly the grocery list. Or they could even use the blank liner notes for T.P. if they forgot to put it on the grocery list and then discover that they've run out.
When we take the kids to the store, or out in general, I've noticed that we are getting looks even before we open our mouths and the locals hear our "accent" (or lack of one to my ear.)
I think it has to do with rings, or rather the lack of them.
One of my wife's small side diamonds got loose from the setting just before we moved, and as it now snags like a grappling hook, she has stopped wearing it.
The day before we moved, my wedding ring cracked and broke clean through while I was lifting boxes and whatnot.
Since the crack was pinching the meat of my finger when it would flex open and then closed, I also removed my ring.
So, here we are, a guy and a girl with two kids out shopping for household stuff, and no rings.
Panties have become bunched to say the least, and disapprovals have been glared.
Also today at the grocer, a national chain by the way and not a local mom and pop store, I saw that the condoms were located behind a locked glass display case in the pharmacy.
Message: no casual sex allowed without the tacit approval and or counseling from an authority figure. Consult with pharmacist before engaging in protected sex. Then you can get the snickering grin from the cashier on the way out for the cherry on top.
The Millionaire had a similar account from his last trip to the area. In a Wal-Mart, a zealot was stalking the cosmetics aisle handing out pamphlets to all the girls/women passing through telling them that make-up was only for whores and that they were all going to hell for painting their faces like Jezebels.
The Millionaire ushered his two teen daughters away from the zealot and brought the scene to the attention of the manager on the way out of the store.
Upon which he was informed, by the manager, that the zealot was named Earl and that he was in the store as often as he could make it, praise the lord, whenever he wasn't at work or sleeping, doing the lord's work. Trying to spread the message for the kingdom and keep women from a wrong path on that aisle.
Welcome to the buckle of the "bible belt".
Bread and yogurt.
Wow, did you see that guy?
Man. That coulda been bad.
What an obit. Guy going to the store and turns out he's in line for the great checkout in the sky.
Bread and yogurt.
Nearly took my front bumper off.
Damn.
The light was red buddy.
That means stop.
This ain't seventh grade, I'm not your girlfriend, and no, you're not an ambulance.
Bread and yogurt.
When are they gonna fix that pothole? It's been there for over a year, right?
Which door should I park by? Depends if I use self-checkout or not.
What am I getting.
Bread and yogurt.
Right. Self-checkout it is. Bag boy union, hmmpf, who ever heard of such a thing?
Oh, there's a good one.
Right next to the, oh my, is she checking me out?
Damn, I'm going to miss short skirt season.
Looky that, perfect parking, I should be an instructor or something.
Wish I had my camera.
Bread and yogurt.
Is it gonna rain?
Better hurry.
What time is it?
When does her show end?
Plenty of time I'm sure, ah, there's the hand baskets.
What was I getting?
Bread and yogurt.
Right, where's that in this store?
I remember at the other one, but at this one its..
Picturing it, yeah, got it.
Together at the far back, left side.
Hey, look watermelon. That'd be tasty for breakfast tomorrow.
Might even put the wife in the mood for mid-week naughtiness.
Season fries? Who can say no to seasoned fries.
I'll cook 'em in the oven so their healthier than fried.
Frozen pizza on sale!
Ahh yeah, daddy's having pizza tonight!
Toaster waffles! The eldest will love toaster waffles.
That'll be great for the Grandparents to give her next week while we're on vacation.
Ice cream, two for one? Well shiii-ite.
Hmmm. Might make the wife think she's getting heavy though...
and we all know that means an end to the hope of mid-week naughtiness.
No icecream. Got it. It'd be good but... No, let's hold out for naughtiness.
What was that thing I was looking for?
Oh, yah, my foot hurts. I was going to try a corn remover on those callouses from the rose thorns.
Lets see what they have in the pharmacy section. Doo-dee-doo. Aha. Corn removers. Cool.
Okay, you know you're in pain when you say, "Corn removers, cool."
I'd go to the doctor but he wants to do a full physical complete with fasting and crap.
Even a tetnis shot.
How about I just promise to avoid rusty nails, huh doc?
Yeah, this should work.
Am I done? What else did I come for? The baskets getting full.
Oh, bread and yogurt, right!
Hmm, there's the bread and we're on the home stretch, just turn the corner to the...
Huh, the yogurt guy is totally blocking my access.
Can't they re-stock, you know, at night? When the store it closed and they wouldn't be in the way of the shopper?
Isn't that WHY stores close to customers? To take care of all the house-cleaning like re-stocking?
I'd ask him to move but his boxes are everywhere. Dude, I totally can't get through.
Well, there's a little space on the end, so I could reach...
Hey! Is this a plot? A conspiracy? They've only left access to the premium yogurt that's $3 and completely blocked the more reasonable 50 cent containers. I suspect you all.
All right, no yogurt then, fine.
I'll see you another day yogurt re-stocking guy, you can't block my fruit on the bottom forever!
