Grocery Store Solo - Wednesday - April 20, 2011

Let me start by stating that there will be NO pictures with this blog. Intentionally! Me going to the grocery store by myself is like a fish out of water. It was really an out of body experience for me! I equate this to a deer in headlights – I was frozen to the cart. We needed groceries and Nancy had to work. Nancy told me that today was also “seniors’ day” at Krogers. I thought to myself how bad could it be?

Well ---- , it’s worse than I imagined. I should have known the experience was going to be bad when I had to circle the parking lot (twice) to find a place to park. Once in the store I took one of the last few carts and had a death grip on the handle for fear of being run over or worse losing the cart while I was hunting for stuff. That’s right – hunting is the best way I can describe my shopping ability.
 I had the trusty list of items I needed to buy. I didn’t know brands or types, but, how hard can it be to buy produce? I now have a deeper appreciation for Nancy’s ability to shop and save us money. It didn’t matter that I only needed a couple of boxes of cereal (they have a whole aisle for cereal); same for frozen juice, and laundry detergent, bleach, the list goes on. I have to admit this is a real pain in the ---.

It’s not that I’ve never been in a grocery store before! I’ve always been with Nancy and my role has been to push the cart and then pay at checkout. It never seemed so difficult before. And now with all the old folks just standing and blocking all the aisles deciding which can of corn to buy was a little too much for me. And worse, I didn’t have any circulars or coupons or anything! I didn’t know I needed all that stuff. Oh, I really didn’t – I just pay more than everybody else!

An hour later I got to the checkout line where I was behind a little elderly woman with a huge pocketbook groping for loose change. I just smiled thinking “just get me out of here.” I dutifully paid the tab and wielded the cart out to my car and loaded the 10 bags of groceries in the back of the car. I sat there in silence for five minutes thanking my lucky stars that this trek was over and prayed that the 90 year old couple behind me in the lot was not going to drive into me.

I got home just as Nancy was about to go to work. She wanted to see the receipt. All I know is she said I need more training as I overpaid for most of what I bought. I don’t think I should do this on a regular basis, after all, I’m on a fixed income and if I do this grocery shopping we’re going to lose a lot of money. The most important lesson I learned – don’t shop on seniors’ day. Sheesh!