I don’t usually do the grocery shopping at our house; the Husband usually does the grocery run. It started during COVID when we only wanted to send one person to the store and it was him. (Remember COVID? And the minefield that was navigating the grocery store?)
But yesterday I had a pretty light day at work and given all the birthday parties and lessons and guests and opening nights over the weekend, we didn’t do the shop on the weekend, so I went for a late afternoon grocery run, all by myself.
I usually get a scanner and do self check out, but when I got to the store, there was already a guy at the scanner kiosk and I suddenly felt self conscious about lurking behind him, so I decided to forgo the scanner and just do my shopping and then go to a human inhabited check out line.
Grocery shopping for me is almost a recreational activity. I like to put my audiobook on, wander the aisles, and do some leisurely reading of ingredient labels. This however, was not that kind of trip. I had a 4pm meeting and it was already 3:10pm. So I zoomed through the store, checking things off the shopping list. (The Husband and I use the Out of Milk app – it shares seamlessly between his android and my apple phones.)
I don’t know if late afternoon grocery shopping brings out a different breed of clientele, but the folks in the store did not have the same urgency that I did. I felt like I got into the checkout line with all the issues, and everything was taking forever. But I decided to be Zen about it. It was still only 3:35 – I figured I could afford to be Zen for fifteen more minutes before I would start sweating about being late for my meeting.
As I was standing there listening to my story, an elderly man came to stand behind me. He had just a basket and inside was a skirt steak, a bouquet of flowers, an a tub of vanilla ice cream. Tied to the basket with a balloon that said “Happy Birthday” with pictures of footballs and soccer balls all over it.
“You can go ahead of me,” I said to him. I had a whole grocery cart of purchases and it seemed rude to make him wait.
“Oh no, that’s okay,” he said. “I don’t mind waiting. I’m not in a rush.”
“But it looks like you have somewhere to be,” I said, indicating the Happy Birthday balloon, and the bouquet of flowers. “Are you celebrating?”
“Well,” he said, “My wife passed away four years ago, and tomorrow is her birthday. I always go visit her on her birthday.”
“Oh,” I said. I had no words for him. “Well, I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you.” Which might have been the dumbest thing to say. But I hope it was true.
Then the guy in front of me turned to me and pointed at the salmon I was buying.
“Fish is good stuff,” he said.
“Yes it is,” I said.
“I eat lots of fish. It’s excellent on the grill.”
“Oh. What’s you’re favorite kind of fish?”
“Well,” he said, “Cod. I really like cod. It tastes really simple and not too fishy.” Then he went on to list all the other kinds of fish he liked to eat until it was his turn to get rung up.
“Well, enjoy your fish,” he said.
Finally it was my turn and the cashier, who looked like a lady who simultaneously didn’t suffer fools and also had an infinite well of patience, started scanning my stuff. I stood on the end and bagged the things as they came to me on the conveyor belt.
And then I wasn’t looking, and my scallions came riding down on the conveyor belt and got sucked under the metal plate at the end of the belt. By the time I notice, they were half way gone.
“Help!” I shouted at the cashier. “The conveyor belt has my scallions!”
I grabbed one of the green stalks and tugged, but it was a losing battle – three scallions came off the bunch into my hand, but the rest of them continued under the metal plate.
The cashier looked up, saw me with half a bunch of scallions in my hand while the rest of the scallions disappeared sadly under the metal plate, and we all burst into laughter at the sheer ridiculousness of the conveyor belt stealing my scallions.
She stopped the belt and flipped up the metal plate. Fascinating – I’ve never seen inside a conveyor belt before. There were my sad scallions lying in the bowels of the conveyor belt. I didn’t know what to do, so I fished them out and put them in my shopping bag.
“I’ll just rinse them off,” I thought.
The cashier took the scallions off my bill.
So free scallions. Yay!
It was the best trip I’ve had to the grocery store in a long time.
What’s going on at your grocery store?
I am almost always in a big hurry at the grocery store, but this week my friend called, asking me to order something on the costco app. I told her I didn’t have the app. “Have we met?” – because I’m not exactly on pace with technology. Anyway, that conversation taught me that I could be ordering my non perishable groceries online. They get delivered to my house in 2 days, and all I have to do is run over and purchase my dairy items. So much faster. So my grocery days just go a bit easier. Mini had the day off for Veterans Day and she was here with the babies, so I got my Costco run done during the day which was awesome. I was shocked at how busy the place was before noon.