Going to the Grocery Store Hangry

Grocery Store

My Typical Grocery Shopping Routine

1950s Housewife

I make sure I always go grocery shopping on Sundays with a full stomach and lots of energy. Before going, I plan out all the meals for the week using allrecipes.com. After checking what ingredients I have on hand, I then type in all the items I need on my phone. Next, I download e-coupons then carefully clip out paper ones that were sent to us. Because we spend 1 billion dollars a month there, they send me “best customer” coupons almost every week. I then paper clip my coupons, bid my family adieu and I’m off.

Once I’m at the grocery store, I carefully sanitize any part of the cart I will be touching before casually meandering through the aisles. Sometimes, I even indulge in browsing the magazine section for 10 whole minutes. Ohhh, naughty! In an organized fashion, I go up and down every aisle to ensure I get everything I need. I get all my dry goods first then it’s frozen to dairy to meat to deli to produce to ensure maximum freshness. As I select my goods, I place them in the cart in an extremely organized, meticulous fashion.

Once at checkout, I try to place like items with like items, hoping similar items will be bagged with similar items. Once checkout is complete, I hand the clerk my perfectly clipped coupons and this week is complete.

 

But because of the weather, I didn’t get a chance to grocery store on Sunday. So, I went tonight….after work….on an empty stomach. My goal was to get the bare minimum to get us to Sunday. I was anticipating about 25% of the usual load and here is my account.

Grocery Shopping Hangry

I mall-walked into the grocery store while checking my list. Once I grabbed a cart, I walked right past the Purell station and straight to the wine. I threw a box in the cart and pushed on. In the next aisle was a 200-year-old woman moving at the speed of snail, in the middle of the aisle. After saying “excuse me” 3 times, each more gradually desperate then the last, she finally realized someone was behind her.

I went through every aisle like it was the Indy-500. I threw shit in my cart left and right, not caring if it were organized or not. By 6:30 I was ready to gnaw off my own hand in hunger.

‘That’s it! I’m getting everything!’ I screamed in my head.

This is when things went really bad. I did the unthinkable and put 1/2 pound of $8, jarlsberg dip in my cart. I found 90% dark chocolate as well as 80% and 70%. Normally I get 1 loaf of bread each week. Tonight I got 1 loaf of white bread, 1 loaf of 3-cheese Italian bread, 1 loaf of Texas Toast and to round out my bread-around-the-world trip, 4 croissants.

At the deli, I had an external meltdown when a woman asked for 3 pounds of turkey. This was after her 5 other bags she already had of other meats and cheeses. Obviously she was opening a Subway. When the next woman asked to sample salami, it was out of my mouth before I could stop it,

“Jesus Christ,” I said as I put my head down on my cart. I must have said it too loud because she turned around and looked back at me then turned back around to the deli clerk and told her to forget the sample and that was all she needed.

I will let you live now ma’am.

The end all, icing on the cake was when I realized I was done and began to walk towards the check out lines. I took a path that could only fit 1 cart and that was a huge mistake as I was behind a man who was on his death-bed, barely walking forward. The time it would take to go around a floral fixture, he would still end up in front of me. I accepted I would be walking behind him for a while and fixed my eyes in a complete eye roll.

He then stopped and slowly turned around to look at me. He had oxygen tubes going in his nose and in a raspy voice said to me, and I shit you not, “I shouldn’t have stopped so fast.”

‘Keep your composure. He’s not the enemy, your hunger is. Just smile,’ I told myself.

And that’s what I did. I smiled at him then went around him. Once I got home, I was finally able to eat at 7 PM. I had a toasted ham and swiss croissant sandwich with a side of jarlsberg dip with crackers.

24 Comments

Leave a reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

FOLLOW

Get the latest posts delivered to your mailbox:

%d bloggers like this: