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How To Go To the Grocery Store

First, make a list. Get a piece of paper and write down all the things you need. Ask your shackup if there?s anything he?d like to add to the list.

Get a bigger piece of paper and start over, combining your list with the 5,000 items that you forgot until your shackup mentioned them.

Realize that you forgot cleaning supplies and paper goods. Scribble these items onto the back of an envelope.

Using your list as a reference, go through your coupons to see if there?s anything you can save money on.

Throw out all your coupons when you realize they expired two days after you got them. Find two coupons you can use, if you buy that other kind of soy milk in the funny container which fills you with a vague unease.

Get the cart from behind the door. Realize that cart makes horrible, banshee-like squeaking noise. Remember the funny looks people gave you in the grocery store that other time. Spend twenty minutes searching for WD-40.

Add WD-40 to grocery list. Oil wheels of cart with sewing machine oil.

Commence to the store. Curse the bumpiness of the sidewalks, the bizarre sequence of Bostonian traffic lights, and the inability of people walking in pairs to step aside for ONE SINGLE SECOND to let you pass. Practice your testy sighs and dirty looks. You will need them.

Arrive at your destination. Wait for the person standing in the doorway and leaning over to select a shopping basket to move out of the way.

Sigh, testily.

Wonder what exactly is so difficult about the selection of a shopping basket that you never noticed before.

Roll your eyes.

Mutter ?Finally!? under your breath and enter the store.

Realize that all of the shopping baskets are a) broken, b) melted, or c) sitting in a puddle of liquefied spinach and floor cleaner.

Refuse to forgive the person in front of you on the grounds that to do so would be a sign of weakness. Select the least hideous shopping basket and balance it haphazardly in your cart.

Get out your list. Traverse the grocery store, aisle by aisle, acquiring goods. Note the reluctance of others to follow grocery store etiquette by adhering to commonly accepted traffic laws: Aisle 1 up, Aisle 2 down, etc.

Note another unfortunate habit held by many patrons, of perusing the shelves on one side of an aisle while clinging with one hand to their grocery cart, parked directly across from them. Attempt to point out to one such patron that this causes the aisle to be, in essence, blocked. Further reveal that this makes it difficult for you to perform your shopping. Attempt to gently insinuate that perhaps the shopper holds the power to change this situation for the better.

Receive a blank and hostile stare from your fellow man.

Emit a testy sigh. Produce a baleful glare.

Truck down the newly vacated aisle. With trepidation, select the very last bottle of the questionable soy milk for which you have a coupon, slightly dirty and battered from its adventures, but seemingly intact.

Gaze longingly at the tempting packaged frozen treats in the last aisle. Refrain from selecting them because you are saving money. Feel virtuous.

End your trip to the grocery store walking. verrrrry. slooooowly. down the bread aisle, behind a young child who is meticulously zigzagging his cart right to left across the aisle at a 30-degree angle, while his mother stands at the end of the lane and whimpers, ?Damien, honey, come on, Mommy?s in a hurry. We have to go, Damien? I mean it! Stop playing around, okay? Please??

Lose the kid when he gets hung up on the bagel display and tear towards the registers. For fun, practice your ?Accidentally-on-purpose Bodycheck? maneuver on ?Mommy.? Fail to fool anyone. Hightail it towards the nearest line before the police are summoned.

Wait for the person three customers in front of you to write a check. Wait for a price check. Wait for the compatriot of the person two in front of you to come back with the right kind of soup. Wait for the person once removed from you to realize that their groceries are being rung up along with those of the person in front of them. Wait for the manager to come with the void key.

Get ready to be a good customer. Prepare your bank card and the grocery card which entitles you to discounts. Look in your wallet for your coupons. Realize that your coupons are sitting in the kitchen at home. Remember that they expire tomorrow. Curse the soy milk.

Wait as the person in front of you has his purchases rung up. Wait for him to move his cart forward, so that you may have access to the rapidly appearing space on the conveyor belt.

Sigh testily. Watch the inaccessible space on the conveyor belt grow larger. Watch the person in front of you emerge from his deep coma and realize that the clerk is now awaiting payment. Move forward.

Place your groceries on the conveyor belt in careful order, heaviest first, frozen goods together. Place your apples with tender devotion upon the belt, just ahead of the smushable bread and chip category.

Bustle towards the front of the register, waiting to grab your groceries and put them into bags in the accepted order. Succeed with the heavy unbreakable items. Reluctantly cede this duty to a grocery store employee when the time to make your payment approaches.

Observe as the grocery store clerk lifts your apples, tosses them upon the scale, and hurls them down the belt towards the bagger. Wince in agony as you hear your apples thud against the metal. Cringe as the bagger tosses a can of beans in on top of the apples.

Note the total charge. Say, ?There must be some mistake. You see, I only purchased one of each item.?

Receive a blank stare. Sigh testily. Relinquish your bank card, although it clings, screaming, to your palm.

Retrieve your receipt and your sweating, crying, bleeding bank card from the clerk. Say, ?Thank you.?

Rattle home with your cart, its banshee wail now restored thanks to the 500 pounds of groceries inside. Remember that you forgot the WD-40. Remember that you forgot all of the non-food household goods. Calculate how long this week?s Boston Phoenix can be used as a substitute for napkins. Realize, smugly, that you?ll be fine until it?s your shackup?s turn to go shopping.

Arrive home. Put away the groceries. Read the Last Rites for your apples.

Realize that it is now dinnertime. Look in the kitchen. Realize that despite the fact that your refrigerator and cupboards are groaning with supplies, you somehow managed to avoid purchasing the components for even one entire meal.

Order pizza. Pretend to be shocked that you can?t pay with your bank card.

Posted by hilatron at September 27, 2002 02:20 PM